FE Simulation Of Automobile Forward Shaft On Bending Forming And Whole Final Forging Procedure

The forward shaft is a key automobile part. The conventional forging process of forward shaft involves the high expenses on equipments and difficult maintenance of equipment. The combined forming process of precision forming roll forging and die forging presents many advantages such as little expenses on equipments, strong adaptability of process and utilization ratio of materials. However the dies are still designed by handwork and made by conventional methods that greatly restrict the application of the precision forming process. With the rapid development of numerical simulation of plastic processing, it is a perfect way for the designing of process and production of die aided by the Finite Element (FE) simulation. The rationality of die designing is fully validated by the simulation method during the virtual manufacturing process, and hence decreasing the R&D time of the new product, quickly responding the customer's requirements, tremendously shortening the cycle time and cost of the trial and error test. As a result, the whole economic performance and the comprehensive strength of enterprises are upgrading.Based on the current technical situation and trend of the forward shaft, the analysis method of the plastic forming process is discussed systemically, and more attention is paid on the FE application on the plastic forming process. After scrutinizing the national and international related technical documents, the characteristics of several common forging processes of forward shaft, such as drop forging, die forging and roll forging, is analyzed deeply. Then the advantages of the combined forming process of precision forming roll forging and die forging process of forward shaft are proposed through comparing the several forging processes with each other.Based on the above all, by using rigid visco-plastic material model and 3-D coupled FE simulation, bending forging and whole final forging procedure are analyzed and simulated with finite element analysis software DEFORM. The results indicate the inner stress field, strain field, metal flowing law and forging travel-load curve during the forming procedure. The forming status, causation of defect of workpiece are predicted and so on. All of these results can offer a qualitative and quantitative theoretical basis in optimizing the process of final forging of forward shaft and prolonging the final forging mold's service life.