COUPLED THERMOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF METAL-FORMING PROCESSES THROUGH A COMBINED FINITE-ELEMENT BOUNDARY-ELEMENT APPROACH

This paper presents a new approach for obtaining the distribution of t emperature in the dies during thermo-mechanical numerical analysis of metal forming problems. The proposed approach is based on a solution r esulting from the combination of the finite element method with the bo undary element method. The finite element method is used to perform th e numerical modelling of the thermo-mechanical deformation of the work piece, taking into account the geometrical and material non-linearitie s as well as the influence of the temperature distribution on the mech anical behaviour of the material. The boundary element method is appli ed for computing the distribution of temperatures in the dies. The com bination of the two numerical methods is made using the finite element solution of the heat flow exchanged across the die-workpiece interfac e to define the boundary conditions to be applied on the thermal analy sis of the dies. A numerical example of compression under plane-strain conditions is included to show the applicability of the proposed appr oach. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.