Pre-simulation tool for an effective parallel processing of three-dimensional rigid-viscoplastic bulk forming analysis

Abstract

In bulk metal forming, an initially simple part is plastically deformed between dies and tools to obtain a desired final shape. In this manner near-net shape products can be obtained with a minimal material waste in advantageous production cycles. Also in the case of cold forging, final products with excellent dimensional accuracy and mechanical properties can be obtained. Such benefits have led metal forming parts to be widely used for a variety of structural parts and mechanical components. Recently, as near net-shape manufacturing has become a necessity in industry to meet the demands of reducing cost and improving quality, efforts are being made to replace traditional experience-based process development with more effective and efficient design methods. Among the numerous numerical methods that can be used for the analysis of bulk metal forming processes, the finite element method (FEM) is most widely used today due to its accuracy and capability of dealing with general shaped geometries. In particular, the rigid-viscoplastic finite element approach is preferred over other approaches due to its computational efficiency. Furthermore, due to geometrical constraints of two-dimensional analyses, emphasis on three-dimensional analyses is ever growing. However, the large amount of computational effort and expense required for three-dimensional analyses can limit their actual use in bulk forming industry. Thus, efforts are needed to make three-dimensional simulations more attractive. In terms of hardware, the use of lower cost computing machines, such as personal computers (PCs), is suitable for the bulk metal forming industry, which is largely composed of small-to-medium sized enterprises. In terms of software, the application of parallel processing algorithms to bulk forming simulations is promising, as parallel processing distributes computation time and memory requirements among a number of processors to increase the efficiency of calculations. In this regard,...