Development and capability of the SPForm finite element modeling program

摘要

With increased emphasis on affordable manufacturing within the aerospace industry, it is imperative that design, producibility, manufacturing, and tooling engineers have advanced analysis and simulation tools to assess the producibility and affordability of part designs before putting them into production. A verasatile, user-friendly finite element modeling software package was needed to analyze the manufacture of parts using the superplastic forming and diffusion bonding processes employed at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace - St. Louis. The SPForm software package was developed by the Institute for Forming Technology in Zurich, Switzerland to meet the needs identified by the user community. The software has exhibited the ability to model the desired forming processes and provides the capability to display many key forming parameters required when evaluating part designs and fabrication methods.