Research On The Algorithm Of Hexahedral Mesh Generation For Aluminum Extrusion Simulation Process

With the development of industry and economy, the proportion of aluminium profiles used for industrial production increasingly improves.The metal flow rule of aluminum profile extrusion process is very complicated and in order to ensure the quality of aluminum profiles, the aluminum profile die design process is particularly important. The mold design process should depend on scientific analysis method instead of the experience design, mold test and mold repair. Numerical simulation method has been widely used in metal forming domain, and increasing commercial softwares can be applied to the numerical simulation process of aluminum profile extrusion process. However, the Finite Element Method(FEM), which uses the Lagrange grid, will cause serious mesh distortion in extrusion process and require remeshing process frequently. The Finite Volume Method(FVM), which uses Euler grid, avoids the remeshing process. But the relevant commercial softwares, like Msc/SuperForge, are not the appropriative software of aluminum profile extrusion process, and they do not adequately consider the characteristics of aluminium profile extrusion die and metal flow. Meanwhile, they are also exist problems about mesh discretization and numerical calculation.In accordance with the characteristics of metal flow and deformation in aluminium profile extrusion process, this paper researched on the characteristics of aluminum profile extrusion flow model and the hexahedral mesh generation algorithm, established the hexahedral mesh generation algorithm of aluminum profile extrusion flow model, which provided reliable high quality hexahedral mesh for the aluminum profile extrusion process.This paper studied the characteristics of aluminum profile extrusion flow model, built the aluminum profile extrusion block flow model and identified the geometric information of the block models as well as the sharing face between block models. This paper researched on the hexahedral mesh generation algorithm and characteristics of each block model, then selected the grid-based method to divide the hexahedral mesh of the porthole block model, and used the sweeping method for the hexahedral mesh division of bearing block model and billet block model. This paper also identified the distorting mesh on the sharing face between the bearing block model and the porthol block model, optimized the distorting mesh with topological optimization, and applied Laplacian smoothing to the nodes of the porthole block mesh. Meanwhile, this paper generated the hexahedral mesh of solid profile, hollow profile and complex profile, and verified the correctness and reliability of this algorithm.