3-DIMENSIONAL GRANULAR MODELING FOR METALLIC POWDER COMPACTION AND FLOW-ANALYSIS

Powder is a popular state of material for many industries. In powder m etallurgy, it is important to know the behavior of the powder under ap plied stress to ensure accurate design and good quality. However, the mechanical behaviors of powder is not well understood. The authors con sider that this is due in part to the difficulty in handling powder nu merically. To investigate the fundamental mechanism of powder behavior , numerical simulation of the behavior of powder under mechanical comp ression and under applied vibration has been performed. To describe th e mechanical behavior of powder in practical forming, granular modelin g is a powerful tool. Allowing for the effect of three-dimensionality in the compaction and flowability is essential for precise description of powder behavior. In this paper, three-dimensional granular modelin g is proposed and developed for metallic powder compaction and flow an alysis. The validity of the method is demonstrated. Formulations based on the three-dimensional direct ball-element method (DBEM-3D) are pre sented and discussed briefly. In the numerical simulation, static powd er compaction and vibration-induced powder behavior considered. The di fferences between two- and three-dimensional calculations are discusse d.