Numerical analysis of coating-substrate systems

Coated tools having a higher edge life compared to uncoated ones are well s uited for high speed or dr): machining and produce a higher product quality . So coating technology gained a growing importance for industrial applicat ions. To achieve further progress in the development of new coating systems , it is desirable to combine the experimental dominated developing process with numerical simulations for the influence of external loads on the stabi lity of the coatings, which mainly depends on the deformation state and on the stress-strain situation inside the tool. These quantities are computabl e by 3D finite element simulations. Since the thickness of the coatings is tiny compared to tools' measures, such computations must be performed on hi ghly graded meshes to lay hold of the tool's geometry as well as of the mic roscopic layers. Even when adapting the mesh density to the accuracy requir ements in an optimal manner, the dimension of the FE systems, the computati onal effort and the storage requirements are extremely large, pushing the l imits of standard hardware, even when advanced storage technologies and sol vers for the FE matrices are used. On parallel computers, the runtime may b e considerably reduced and the available storage is substantially enlarged. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.