Finite element analysis of tube swaging and radial forging processes

Abstract

A new analysis model is presented to simulate both the cold swaging process and hot radial forging process. To deal with the effect of manipulator or tool for material handling, the presented analysis model utilizes the back pressing pusher. The pusher touches the material and moves with it when the material does not touch the forming dies while it stops and allows the material to penetrate when the material touches the forming dies. The back pressing force is defined as a function of penetration depth of the material into the pusher. Thus the pusher plays two roles as a numerical spring, which are material feeding and force balancing. For the first application example, the presented approach is applied to a cold swaging process and its predictions are compared with the experiments, showing that they are in a good agreement with each other. For the second application example, a radial forging process is simulated using a rigidthermoviscoplastic finite element method. ? 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.