AUTOMATIC SIMULATION OF A SEQUENCE OF HOT-FORMER FORGING PROCESSES BYA RIGID-THERMOVISCOPLASTIC FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

A fully automatic forging simulation technique in hot-former forging i s presented in this paper. A rigid-thermoviscoplastic finite element m ethod is employed together with automatic simulation techniques. A rea listic analysis model of the hot-former forging processes is given wit h emphasis an thermal analysis and simulation automation. The whole pr ocesses including forming, dwelling, ejecting, and transferring are co nsidered in the analysis model and various cooling conditions are embe dded in the analysis model. The approach is applied to a sequence of t hree-stage hot former forging process. Nonisothermal analysis results are compared with isothermal ones and the effect of heat transfer on p redicted metal flows is discussed.