FINITE-ELEMENT ANALYSIS FOR PRECISION COLD-FORGING OF HELICAL GEAR USING RECURRENT BOUNDARY-CONDITIONS

In metal forming, there are problems with recurrent geometric characte ristics without explicitly prescribed boundary conditions. In such pro blems, so-called recurrent boundary conditions must be introduced. In this paper, as a practical application of the proposed method, the pre cision cold forging of a helical gear (which is industrially useful an d geometrically complicated) has been simulated by a three-dimensional rigid-plastic finite element method and compared with the experiment. The application of recurrent boundary conditions to helical gear forg ing analysis is proved to be effective and valid. The three-dimensiona l deformed pattern by the finite element analysis is shown, and the fo rging load is compared with the experimental load. The profiles of the free surface of the workpiece show good agreement between the computa tion and the experiment.