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This paper gives a review of the finite element techniques (FE) applied in the area of material processing. The latest trends in metal forming, non‐metal forming, powder metallurgy and composite material processing are briefly discussed. The range of applications of finite elements on these subjects is extremely wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore the aim of the paper is to give FE researchers/users only an encyclopaedic view of the different possibilities that exist today in the various fields mentioned above. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on finite element applications in material processing for 1994‐1996, where 1,370 references are listed. This bibliography is an updating of the paper written by Brannberg and Mackerle which has been published in Engineering Computations, Vol. 11 No. 5, 1994, pp. 413‐55.

This paper gives a review of the finite element techniques (FE) applied in the area of material processing. The latest trends in metal forming, non‐metal forming and powder metallurgy are briefly discussed. The range of applications of finite elements on the subjects is extremely wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore the aim of the paper is to give FE users only an encyclopaedic view of the different possibilities that exist today in the various fields mentioned above. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on finite element applications in material processing for the last five years, and more than 1100 references are listed.

Sheet metal forming is a process of shaping thin sheets of metal by applying pressure through male or female dies or both. In most of used sheet‐formating processes the metal is subjected to primarily tensile or compressive stresses or both. During the last three decades considerable advances have been made in the applications of numerical techniques, especially the finite element methods, to analyze physical phenomena in the field of structural, solid and fluid mechanics as well as to simulate various processes in engineering. These methods are useful because one can use them to find out facts or study the processes in a way that no other tool can accomplish. Finite element methods applied to sheet metal forming are the subjects of this paper. The reason for writing this bibliography is to save time for readers looking for information dealing with sheet metal forming, not having an access to large databases or willingness to spend own time with uncertain information retrieval. This paper is organized into two parts. In the first one, each topic is handled and current trends in the application of finite element techniques are briefly mentioned. The second part, an Appendix, lists papers published in the open literature. More than 900 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with subjects that were published in 1995‐2003 are listed.

In the present work a rigid‐plastic finite element formulation using a dynamic explicit time integration scheme is proposed for numerical analysis of sheet metal forming processes. The rigid‐plastic finite element method, based on membrane elements, has long been employed as a useful numerical technique for the analysis of sheet metal forming because of its time effectiveness. The explicit scheme, in general, is based on the elastic‐plastic modelling of material requiring large computation time. The resort to rigid‐plastic modelling would improve the computational efficiency, but this involves new points of consideration such as zero energy mode instability. A damping scheme is proposed in order to achieve a stable solution procedure in dynamic sheet forming problems. In order to improve the drawbacks of the conventional membrane elements, BEAM (abbreviated from Bending Energy Augmented Membrane) elements, are employed. Rotational damping and spring about the drilling direction are introduced to prevent a zero energy mode. The lumping scheme is employed for the diagonal mass matrix and linearizing dynamic formulation. A contact scheme is developed by combining the skew boundary condition and a direct trial‐and‐error method. Computations are carried out for analysis of complicated sheet metal forming processes such as forming of an oilpan and a front fender. The numerical results of explicit analysis are compared with the implicit results, with good agreement, and it is shown that the explicit scheme requires much shorter computational times, especially when the problem becomes more complicated. It is thus shown that the proposed dynamic explicit rigid‐plastic finite element enables an effective computation for complicated sheet metal processes.

To study the influence of process and product parameters on the properties of products in incremental sheet metal‐forming; to create models for process optimisation and to introduce an approach to incremental forming process optimisation.

A new flexible sheet metal‐forming technique, incremental forming, has been studied. The technique can be viewed as a rapid prototyping/manufacturing technique for sheet metal parts. To analyse the process, an experimental study and finite element analysis were performed. For the optimal design of incremental forming process non‐linear mathematical programming was used. To estimate the limitations and main parameters of the process, a complex model was developed.

Introducing optimisation procedures for the incremental forming process allows users to increase productivity and to assure quality.

As finite element analysis of the process is time‐consuming in real life situations, a future study should include creating analytical models for process modelling.

The described approach can be used in practice to improve competitiveness of companies producing sheet metal prototypes.

This paper offers guidelines for shortening processing time of sheet metal prototypes for engineers and researchers. The optimisation that is based on experimental/theoretical/numerical models of incremental forming process has not been covered before in the scientific literature.

This paper aims to introduce a new incremental sheet metal‐forming process. By moving a hammering tool over a sheet of metal fixed in a frame, a three‐dimensional workpiece can be produced without using any special die plate.

This paper describes the exact procedure of the new process and the advantages in comparison with other flexible conventional and incremental forming processes. The hammering process in particular, will be considered with respect to material behavior and effects on the industrial robot. In addition, a special path generation for the incremental forming process and multiple robot tools with different drives constructed for the incremental forming process is shown.

During the research it was discovered that complex geometries can be produced without any die plate and that a hammering tool with a mechanical eccentric should be used for the incremental forming process.

As the forces on the handling equipment are very low compared with other forming processes, a common industrial robot can be used to move the hammering tool. Thus sheet metal parts can be produced with cost‐effective equipment. Mainly, small and medium‐sized enterprises can benefit from this new technology.

The incremental forming process presented in this paper is patented by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation. It is the first time that sheet metal parts with a size of 300×300 mm are formed by a hammering tool with 100 hits/s.

THE main object of this paper is to help bridge the gap that exists between the scientific knowledge of materials and the practical application of that knowledge to the production technique of sheet‐metal forming. During the past year the Production Research Group of Lockheed's engineering department has given special attention to this important problem and has worked closely with the production departments in an effort to put sheet‐metal forming on a scientific basis. The following discussion is based largely on the work of the Production Research Group, as reported in various references and in papers yet to be published. Mr. William Schroeder and Mr. G. A. Brewer of this group have been particularly helpful to the author in the preparation and editing of the technical material. Because of the scope of the present paper, detailed discussion and analysis of new developments cannot be undertaken; however, such information will be made available as soon as possible in the form of individual papers by those directly responsible for the work.

The initiation and growth of wrinkles are influenced by many factors such as stress ratios, the mechanical properties of the sheet material, the geometry of the workpiece, contact condition, etc. It is difficult to analyze wrinkling initiation and growth while considering all the factors because the effects of the factors are very complex and studies of wrinkling behavior may show a wide scattering of data even for small deviations in factors. The finite element analyses of wrinkling initiation and growth in sheet metal forming process provide detailed information about the wrinkling behavior of sheet metal. The direct analysis of wrinkling initiation and growth, however, brings about a little difficulty in complex industrial problems because it requires large memory size and long computation time. From the industrial viewpoint of tooling design, therefore, readily available information on the possibility and location of wrinkling is sometimes more preferable to detailed and time‐consuming analysis results. In the present study, in order to give such readily available information on wrinkling initiation, the wrinkling factor, which shows the locations and relative possibility of wrinkling initiation, is proposed as a convenient tool of relative wrinkling estimation based on the energy criterion. The reliability of the wrinkling factor is verified through the buckling analyses of sheet strips. The location and relative possibility of wrinkling initiation are predicted by calculating the wrinkling factor in various sheet metal forming processes such as cylindrical cup deep drawing, spherical cup deep drawing, and elliptical cup deep drawing. Finally, the wrinkling factor proposed in the present study is also implemented in the prediction of wrinkling in the door inner stamping process. For verification of the calculated wrinkling factor, detailed zone analyses with fine meshes are carried out for the regions where wrinkling is predicted.

A sheet metal forming simulation code has been developed, based on the explicit time integration scheme and Mindlin shell theory. It has been used for the analysis of a number of industrial parts. After recalling some modelling issues, this paper describes an industrial methodology based on the experience of those analyses. The aim of the methodology is to provide, at early design stage, information on the product formability with a workload and lead time adapted to the design delays. Concurrently 2D analyses, critical zones studies and coarse mesh global investigations can be used, with a flexible number of iterations, prior to full refined analyses of the forming process. The application of the methodology on several industrial examples is discussed.

THE modern aeroplane is constructed largely from sheet metal. As such, the most important production problems are those of sheet metal forming, and assembling. Production is here considered as not only the act of forming and assembling the required number of parts, but also the making of forming tools, and all processing of parts such as heat‐treating. Only that phase of the above concept of production which deals with the tooling for production and the forming and heat‐treating will be considered here. The design of the aircraft parts will also be discussed somewhat, for it is obvious that the design of the part (designed shape and materials used) frequently determines whether the part can or cannot be readily made.