Numerical modeling of the pinch and roll process

The pinch and roll process is a manufacturing process which has been used since the 1940's to produce compressor blades for use in gas turbine engines. During the manufacture, a failure may surface which is unpredictable, but familiar when seen. A small crack occurs at the base of the blade on the trailing edge near the platform. When the crack is seen, it can be removed from follow-on parts by removing some material in the die by trial and error at the location of the tear, in addition, when a new die is made, it is still unknown if it will result in scrap blades until parts are made. The purpose of this thesis is to examine a known die that generates cracks and develop a numerical model that also predicts a tear or crack.; The process examined is a real production die used by General Electric Aircraft Engines. This blade is a relatively small blade that has historically had high scrap rates when new dies are made for its manufacture. The blade and the dies were modeled using Unigraphics to create the solid model and DEFORM(TM) to perform the numerical simulation and review the results. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...