Reduction of Die Wear and Structural Defects of Railway Screw Spike Heads Estimated by FEM

Railway spike screws are manufactured by hot forging on a massive scale, due to each kilometer of railway track needing 8600 spike screws. These components have a low market value, so the head must be formed in a single die stroke. The service life of the dies is directly related to the amount of energy required to form a single screw. The existing standard for spike screws specifies only the required tolerances for the head dimensions, particularly the angle of the hub faces and the radius of agreement of the hub with the cap. Both geometrical variables of the head and process conditions (as-received material diameter and flash thickness) are critical parameters in spike production. This work focuses on minimizing the energy required for forming the head of a railway spike screw by computational simulation. The variables with the highest degree of incidence on the energy, forging load, and filling of the die are ordered statistically. The results show that flash thickness is the variable with the most significant influence on forming energy and forming load, as well as on die filling. Specifically, the minimum forming energy was obtained for combining of a hub wall angle of 1.3° an as-received material diameter of 23.54 mm and a flash thickness of 2.25 mm. Flash thickness generates a lack of filling at the top vertices of the hub, although this defect does not affect the functionality of the part or its serviceability. Finally, the wear is mainly concentrated on the die splice radii, where the highest contact pressure is concentrated according to the computational simulation results.

Determining Friction and Flow Stress of Material during Forging

Determination of flow stress and friction in cold forging is of paramount importance. In this work, an inverse procedure is developed for predicting the Coulomb’s coefficient of friction and strain-dependent flow stress simultaneously based on the measurement of bulge and forging load. It is also established that in cold forging Coulomb’s coefficient of friction can be approximated as half the friction factor in Tresca (or constant friction) model. In the inverse procedure, forging load is estimated analytically but bulging is estimated by developing an empirical relation. The efficacy of the inverse procedure is ascertained by the data obtained from finite element method simulations. Finite element method was implemented in ABAQUS and validated with the results available in literature. In most of the cases, inverse procedure provides less than 5% error in the estimates of friction and flow stress. A sensitivity analysis is also carried out to study the effect of measurement error. It is observed that error in the estimation of friction is proportional to error in the measurement of bulge. The novelty of the method lies in the quickness and simplicity of the method.

Stress and Strain Distribution in the Upsetting Process

Numerical simulation of metal flow behaviour was studied using DeformTM3D software. The simulation process was done on X20 steel taken from the software database at 1073-1273K temperature, 10mm/s die speed, and 67% height reduction. From the simulation results, forging load, damage, and stress/strain distributions were obtained. The results show that the forging load increased with a decrease in temperature or decreased with an increase in temperature. The maximum damage values increased as the temperature increased. The obtained maximum damage values were 0.42 (1073K), 0.43 (1173K), and 0.45 (1273K). The damage distribution was inhomogeneous in the deformed cylinder. The stress/strain distributions were inhomogeneous in the deformed cylinder. The location of the maximum strain was at the centre of the deformed cylinder while the maximum stress occurred at the die-cylinder contact surfaces. The study showed that flow stress behaviour can be predicted using finite element method. This shows the feasibility of applying the finite element analysis to analyse the forging process.

Thermal simulation model of aero-engine blade material forging simulation

During the high temperature forging process, the thermal parameters such as the temperature field and strain field in the blank have an important influence on the crack damage and micro-structure in the forging. We use the rigid viscoelastic finite element method to carry out the forging process of a heavy aero-engine blade the finite element numerical simulation was carried out to obtain the temperature field, strain field and forging load change law in the forging process with time, and on this basis, combined with the crack damage and repair mechanism and the re?crystallization structure evolution law, an optimization was proposed. The forging process plan. That is, the pre-forging is performed on the basis of the tolerance of the final forging dimension under pressure of 4 mm, the pre-forging temperature is 1160?C, and the final forging temperature is 1120?C. The actual forging process test verifies the feasibility of the process plan, which is the engineering of this process the application lays the scientific foundation.

Rotary Friction Welding of Molybdenum without Upset Forging

A large instantaneous axial forging load is required to be applied for the final stage of rotary friction welding (RFW), which is usually conducive to obtaining clean, compact, and high-quality joints. However, for slender fuel claddings made of molybdenum (Mo) with low stiffness, the instantaneous axial forging load cannot be applied at the final stage of welding. This study carried out RFW tests without upset forging on Mo in the atmospheric environment and investigated the effects of welding time on joint morphology, axial shortening, microstructures, microhardness, tensile strength, and tensile fracture morphology. It found that the excessive and abrupt burning and a lot of smoke were generated around the weld zone during welding and spiral flashes were observed after welding. Under welding pressure of 80 MPa and spindle speed of 2000 r/min, the minimum average grain size and maximum tensile strength can be obtained in 4 s when the welding time is between 2–5 s. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) results show that there were morphologies of a large number of intergranular fractures and a small number of transgranular fractures in the fracture. The above results demonstrated that it is feasible to use RFW without upset forging to seal the last weld spot on upper end plugs of fuel claddings made of Mo in high-pressure inert gas, which would not only obtain reliable welding quality but also seal high-pressure inert gas in cladding tubes. The research results have a practical guiding significance of manufacturing accident-tolerant Mo nuclear fuel cladding.

Flow Stress and Friction of AL6061 and Application to the Cellphone Shell Forging

Predictive power and final shape are very important in the forging process. This study used a finite element method to analyze the forging force, final shape and stress distribution of the cellphone shell forging at different temperatures. To predict the results of FEM simulation accurately, the stress flow and friction factor play an important role. The AL-6061 stress-strain curve at different temperatures was obtained from the compression test of the universal material testing machine. The friction factor between Al-6061 alloy and die is determined by ring compression test.The stress-strain curve and friction factor are applied to the finite element analysis of cellphone forging. Finite element analysis is used to determine the maximum forging load, effective stress distribution and shape of cellphone shell forging. Then the cellphone shell is forged with the parameters of finite element analysis results. Finally, the forging force and product shape are compared between the experimental data and the simulation results. The dimension of the cellphone shell agree with the initial design and the forming force does not exceed the maximum allowable forging load of the machine.

Effect of Lubrication and Forging Load on Surface Roughness, Residual Stress, and Deformation of Cold Forging Tools

Cold forging is a metal forming that which uses localized compressive force at room temperature. During the cold forging process, the tool is subjected to extremely high loads and abrasive wear. Lubrication plays an important role in cold forging to improve product quality and tool life by preventing direct metallic contact. Surface roughness and residual stress also greatly affects the service life of a tool. In this study, variations in surface roughness, residual stress, and specimen deformation with the number of cold forging cycles were investigated under different forging conditions. Specimens that were made of heat-treated SKH51 (59–61 HRC), a high-speed tool steel with a polished working surface, were used. The specimens were subjected to an upsetting process. Compressive residual stress, surface roughness, and specimen deformation showed a positive relationship with the number of forging cycles up to a certain limit and became almost constant in most of the forging conditions. A larger change in residual stress and surface roughness was observed at the center of the specimens in all the forging conditions. The effect of the magnitude of the forging load on the above discussed parameters is large when compared to the effect of the lubrication conditions.

Lubrication in Hot Forging with Pulsed Ram Motion

The effect of pulsed (oscillating) ram motion control on lubrication was investigated in hot forging of stainless steel workpiece with oxide glass lubricant. During the retreat in the pulsed ram motion, the workpiece was re-lubricated by flow of lubricant through the gap between the workpiece and the die. A hot spike-type forging test on a servo press with pulsed ram motions was carried out to investigate the lubrication performance of the oxide glass. In the test, the workpiece with a temperature of 1223 K was extruded into the hollow part of the upper die together with oxide glass in a manner that combined pulsed and stepwise ram operations. The re-lubrication of the workpiece with oxide glass was confirmed by the test results showing 5–10% reduction in the forging load and 5% longer length of the backward extruded part of the workpiece under an appropriate pulsed ram motion.

Application of FEM and Abductive Network to Determine Forging Force and Billet Dimensions of Near Net-Shape Helical Bevel Gear Forging

In this paper, the use of the finite element method in conjunction with abductive network is presented to predict the maximum forging force and the volume of billet during near net-shape helical bevel gear forging. The maximum forging load and volume of billet are influenced by the process parameters such as modules, number of teeth, and die temperature. A finite element method is used to investigate the forging of helical bevel gear. In order to verify the prediction of FEM simulation for forging load, the experimental data are compared with the results of current simulation. A finite element analysis is also utilized to investigate the process parameters on forging load and volume of billet. Additionally, the abductive network was applied to synthesize the data sets obtained from the numerical simulation. The prediction models are then established for the maximum forging load and volume of billet of near net-shape helical bevel gear forging under a suitable range of process parameters. After the predictions of the maximum forging force and the volume of billet, the optimum of the power of forging machine and the dimensions of billet are determined.