Experimental and numerical analysis of industrial warm forming of stainless steel sheet

摘要

In this paper, the development of the industrial forming process of drawpieces is investigated experimentally and numerically. The drawing process presented in this work was achieved with a form of 17-4PH stainless steel sheet with a sheet thickness of 1 mm. Due to the high ratio of yield stress to ultimate tensile strength and large amount of springback of the formed material, to ensure that the shape and dimensions of drawpiece are suitably accurate, the forming process is divided into two stages: forming of the draw piece using a rubber punch and calibration of the drawpiece at elevated temperature. A 3D finite element (FE) coupled thermo-mechanical model was built using the commercial FE-package eta/DynaForm 5.9.3. This package allows physical models of real processes to be analysed, placing special emphasis on non-linear material behaviour, large deformations, and complex friction phenomena. The distribution of the drawpiece shape error obtained by the GOM ATOS system and thickening measurements confirmed that the developed methodology is suitable for industrial manufacture of bearing housings for aircraft fan engines. (C) 2017 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.