Research And Application Of Numerical Simulation Of Superplastic Forming Hollow Fan Blades

Superplastic forming (SPF) have been widely used in the automobile, aerospace and weapon industries owing to their high efficiency, no margin left advanced manufacturing technology , The SPF is a complex process, Which is affected by material properties, friction condition, technological conditions, structure of dies, and related equipments. So far, the design of technology and dies mainly depends on the engineering experience and involves repeated trial-and-errors. This will result in the long research period and high cost, and the quality of products also can't be guaranteed absolutely. With the development of computer technologies and numerical methods, the FEM (Finite Element Method) numerical calculation method has been widely used to simulate the SPF process, through which the deformation of the blade can be obtained. All of these can be very helpful to predict occurrence of the defects, to reduce the cost and to guarantee the quality of products.The development of hollow wide chord fan blades is described in this paper. The mechanical characteristic of the fan blades, its manufacturing method SPF/DB(Superplastic Forming/Diffusion Bonding) with particular reference to structural and metallurgical characteristics are discussed. Comparing with the others, the SPF/DB fabrication process is an outstanding candidate for manufacturing advanced hollow blades. According to metal SPF principle,Finite element simulation is presented for the SPF hollow modal fan blades, using ANSYS/LS-DYNA to simulate the multilayer hollow fan blade SPF/DB process. The analysis result showed that the different design parameters have greatly affect on the hollow fan blades SPF process, The curve of the pressure-time is optimized. The results of the study provide a theoretical reference to the design of the SPF hollow fan blades experiments. A kind of the finite element simulation methods of SPF/DB hollow fan blades are developed in this paper as theoretical basis and methods for the further research and engineering applications.