Advanced material and structural behavior in innovative forming processes – application to process-integrated ring rolling

Abstract

The increasing demand for flexibility and economy in production has a significant impact on production methodologies. In the last decades, several innovative manufacturing processes were developed to meet these requirements. To carry out such a redesign in an efficient manner (which means by computational analysis), new computational models and methods are needed. Process-integrated powder coating is a new kind of ring-rolling process. It takes advantage of the high temperatures and high forces of the ring rolling process. This is not only to increase the ring’s diameter, but also to integrate powder metallurgical multi-functional coatings within the same process. To improve the feasibility assessment of the proposed geometries and material combinations as well as to investigate important quantities such as e.g. the stress state in the rolling gap and the residual porosity of the powder metallurgically produced layer, the versatile application of the finite element method (FEM) is crucial. Therefore, a parameterized 3D finite element (FE) model is developed on the basis of a finite strain viscoplastic material formulation. In order to increase the strength and wear properties of relevant steels, an appropriate heat treatment should be carried out. Therefore, an implicit numerical scheme is applied to investigate the thermomechanical-metallurgical response of multi-phase steel during phase transformation. The paper is concluded by a detailed description of the process simulation and a comparison of its results with experimental data.