Modeling the pattern of metal flow during forming of forgings from a flat billet

Abstract

Parts made of the billets with a thin web and stiffeners are manufactured at metallurgical enterprises in special workshops equipped with powerful hydraulic presses. Often their production is accompanied by the defects that worsen the product macrostructure. In this regard, new techniques are relevant that allow modeling the processes of forming of forgings with stiffeners. The processes of metal processing by pressure are difficult to create a mathematical model describing the stress-strain state of plastic forming of metal. One of the ways to solve the problem of modeling the pattern of metal flow and the spatial diagram of contact pressures is the “theory of thin layer flow”, based on assumptions that simplify the initial system of differential equations. Then the problem is reduced to a purely geometric one and can be solved within the framework of the “sandy analogy” using the proposed methodology. The paper presents the results of computer and physical modeling of the forming of stamped forgings with contour stiffeners. The experiment was carried out in industrial conditions on the precipitation of flat billets made of AK6 alloy on a hydraulic press with a deformation force of 150 MN. It is shown that the proposed software package can have a different functional purpose: express analysis of the pattern of metal flow and calculation of the shape of the billet at the stages of its deformation. This allows, by sorting through values of the geometric parameters of the stamp engraving, to obtain different patterns of metal flow and profiles of stiffeners and choose from them those that guarantee the most uniform filling of the stamp cavities with metal under the stiffeners, which ensures defect-free production of the product.