FEM simulation and study on rectangular drawing process with flange

Drawing process is important in manufacturing area. The development of tooling for rectangular drawing can be time-consuming and expensive, for the drawing process is very sensitive to some processing parameters, such as blank holder force, lubrication condition and layout of draw bead. Numerical simulation of the drawing process is a powerful tool for reducing costly trial-and-error loops and shortening development cycle. The finite element method (FEM) can simulate the stress-strain and thickness changes of the sheet, and predict the forming defects such as cracking, wrinkling, and thinning. As an example, numerical simulation of the rectangular drawing process is presented in the paper. A 3D finite element model of the drawing process is developed by the commercial FEM software, DYNAFORM, which is based on dynamic-explicit FEM procedure, LS-DYNA. The geometrical surfaces of tooling and sheet are modeled in CAD software, UG NX. The plastic stress-strain characteristics of the sheet are based on uniaxial tensile test. Simulation results show the distribution of stress, strain, and thickness. Based on the FLD and deformation results, the mould is designed. Manufacturer¿s stamping experiments have shown that the agreement between simulation and experiment is good.