Deep drawing is a forming process that turns a flat sheet into a hollow or relief part without removing material: a punch pushes the sheet, held by a blank holder, into a die. The metal stretches and flows to take up the shape. Tanks, body panels, enclosures, cups, sinks and saucepans are all drawn.
The process runs on a mechanical or hydraulic press with a tool made up of the punch, the die and the blank holder, from blanks cut beforehand. The risks are wrinkles, tears and springback; they are controlled through the radius geometry, blank holder pressure, lubrication and, for deep parts, several draws, sometimes separated by annealing. Tools are often designed with numerical simulation of the deformation. Drawn materials include mild steels designed specially for forming (such as DC04 grades), aluminium, austenitic stainless steel, copper and brass.
The tooling is custom-made and expensive: deep drawing pays off on large runs, such as automotive or household appliances, and not on a single part. For small runs, other processes take its place: bending and welding, spinning on a lathe, 3D printing or machining. Drawn parts are one piece, light and leak-tight, with no welds; the sheet metal and cutting page presents the forming workshops. Moving from prototype to production is the subject of the guide from prototype to series; see also the idea of a small run.
In a quote request. Give the annual volume and the length of the programme, because the tooling has to be amortised. Attach the 3D model, the material and the thickness, and flag the drawing depth and the radii. Ask who owns the tool, who maintains it and what its expected life is. Allow several weeks for its manufacture, and a prototype made another way to validate the shape.