Simulation-enabled approach for defect prediction and avoidance in forming product development

In the current metal-forming product development paradigm, productivity, quality and production cost are three overriding issues. Among them, the product quality is the most critical one. In up-front design process, prediction and assessment of product quality is a non-trivial issue as there are many factors affecting product quality, which could include material metallurgical, mechanical plastic and thermal behaviours and the interaction and interplay in-between the billet material and tooling. Furthermore, the metal-formed part design, process determination and configuration, tooling design also affect the product quality. To ensure the “right the first time design” from product quality improvement perspective, all the affecting factors need to be investigated and their relationship with product quality to be established. In this paper, a simulation-enabled process and tooling configuration for product quality improvement is addressed and the methodology for prediction of product quality via plastic flow simulation is presented. Through case studies, the developed approach is illustrated and its efficiency is verified.