Abstract:
Forging is one of the conventional shaping technologies that is widely used for the
manufacture of quality products for various industrial applications. The process
involves the mechanical application of a punching force to deform a material to the
desired shape and improved properties. In most cases, the manufacture of quality
products depends on the experience of the designer and trial and error method thus
making the process wasteful and costly. The present study reports on the application
of finite element method (FEM) for the analysis of the effect of punch force on the
stress/strain distribution during the deformation process as a step towards the reduction
of trial and error methods in practice. The results show that increase in the punch force
leads to inhomogeneity in the strain/stress distribution due to change in the deformation
temperature resulting from the internal heat generated during plastic deformation stage
and the frictional force at the punch-workpiece interface. It is also observed that the
maximum effective strain occurs at the center of the deformed sample and the
maximum effective stress occurs at the low effective strain regions. Moreover, the
friction parameter increases as the punch force increases.
