Finite Element Simulation Of Roll Forging For The Automobile Rear Axle Housing And Semi-axle Shaft Sleeve

As important parts of the automobile, the rear axle housing and semi-axle shaft sleeve havealways been focuses of research in the field of material forming. The rear axle housing adoptshydro-bugling, expansion forming, stamping welding, casting to form. And the semi-axle shaftsleeve can be formed through upsetting extrusion, hot extrusion, cross wedge rolling, etc. Therear axle housing and semi-axle shaft sleeve collectively referred to as the rear axle. At themoment, the housing and semi-axle shaft sleeve form respectively, then integrated by welding.In this paper, rear axle housing and semi-axle shaft sleeve was researched as one. Using rollforging of hollow parts, the housing would be bulged after roll forging. Semi-axle shaft sleeveformed directed by roll forging. The project with mechanical expanding will implement the rearaxle shell overall forming, which can reduce the number of parts and the production costimprove, improve rear axle product quality and rate of finished products.Using the finite element software DEFORM to simulate rear axle roll forging, there are fivepasses for the semi-axle shaft sleeve simulation, which including four forming passes and areshaping pass, and there are there passes for rear axle housing rectangular section to form.This paper analysed the equivalent stress, equivalent strain, material flow, temperature field,streamline distribution and grain size changes of the part, also discussed the influencing factorsof concave and wall thickening. In the processing of roll forging, semi-axle shaft sleevedeformed largely, which leads to large equivalent stress and equivalent strain and lowesttemperature. Wall thickening related to cavity, friction coefficient and the amount of deformation.The thickness of semi-axle shaft sleeve increased4.77mm. After roll forged, the streamlinedistribution of the rear axle was reasonable, meeting the requirements of the performance. Thegrains have been refined. Because of the different deformation,the grains of rear axle housingrectangular section and semi-axle shaft sleeve changed differently. The rectangular sectiongenerated new crystal nucleus, homogenized poorly;semi-axle shaft sleeve has finer grains, goodhomogenization corresponding. Using the finite element software DEFORM to simulate rear axle roll forging, make full useof the advantages of finite element technology, the simulation results and analysis not only has acertain guiding role to the actual production, but also provide some support for thick wall hollowparts research and theory.