Deep drawing tool for e-learning: A didactic approach for manufacturing engineering education

Manufacturing processes are an important element in industrial engineering education. In distance education, the learning of engineering subjects has a special difficulty, which can be reduced by means of the use of new technologies, and the practice of mixed models of learning. One of these processes is the deep drawing due to its relevance in the industry. This paper presents a deep drawing tool for e-learning. The tool has been realized for its use in the Master degree because it requires advanced knowledge in manufacturing processes. The instrument has been developed with the objective of the students who can: a) Select input data for get the formability of material to deep drawing; b) Select the process that provides the best solution from a technological perspective; c) Optimize the process for saving the material; d) Know the influence of the punch in the results; e) Consideration of the process cost. The structure of the system has three subsystems: a) Solve, module for data processing and the generation of results; b) Materials, module for management data of the system; and c) Interface, module for user interaction. The tool has been implemented in the software tool programming, developed in Java. This language has been selected because it provides a methodology of object-oriented programming and its execution is possible in multiple operating systems. The paper describes each step of the tool, from the input data to final analysis and they are shown through the results given by the tool.