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.
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