Lyukasztás

Lyukasztás is a manufacturing process in which holes are created in a material by removing material with a punching tool and a corresponding die. The process yields clean, circular or shaped holes and is used to enable fastening, alignment, ventilation, or data encoding in a variety of products. The term is used across industries and also in data processing contexts, where holes punched in cards or tapes encode information.

Methods and equipment include manual punches for light materials; mechanical punching presses with punch-and-die sets; turret punches for metal sheets; hydraulic or pneumatic presses for thicker or harder materials; specialized punching for textiles and leather; perforation for packaging and tear lines; punching patterns can be binder holes or decorative perforations.

Applications range from document preparation, such as binder hole punching, to packaging perforations, ventilation or weight reduction in metal sheets, and textile or leather design. In manufacturing, punching is used for metal fabrication and for creating data-encoding features in historical punched-card systems.

History and terminology note that lyukasztás encompasses both material punching and data encoding via holes in punched cards or tapes. The practice has roots in 19th- and 20th-century industry, with punched-card technology popularized for data processing by Herman Hollerith for the US Census, and the term has since generalized to various punching operations.

Quality and safety considerations include tolerances dependent on tool wear and material properties, potential burr formation requiring deburring, and issues such as springback or work-hardening in some metals. Operators follow safety protocols to prevent injuries, and waste material from punching is typically recycled.