2022 Volume 63 Issue 742 Pages 151-156
In the design of the closed die forging process, a process designer must decide the process conditions such as the number of stages and the die surface shape in each stage. When the target product cannot be forged by a one-stage process, a multi-stage process is necessary. There are numerous combinations of the number of stages and the die surface shape in each stage, which is called the “process layout” in this paper. Therefore, it takes a long time to determine the process layout by trial and error. In this study, to design a draft of the process layout automatically, we investigated the technology for process design automation, focusing on axisymmetric disk-shaped products. The design automation technology was developed by combining the proposed method for die surface generation, finite element method, and an optimization algorithm. In addition, to resolve the issue about the increase in the number of process layout candidates when the target product is vertical asymmetric, we investigated a method of reducing their number. As a result of verification for severally vertically symmetric and vertically asymmetric products, we found that process layouts that satisfy the forging load restriction and forged shape accuracy could be automatically designed.
