Study on the Hemisphere Deep Drawing Process of Metal Sheet Based on the FEM Simulation

Abstract

Deep drawing is a manner of the metal forming, and the most important position in the industry has been occupied because of its high efficiency. In the past, people often used a trial-and-error method and experiences to complete the deep drawing processes.However the time is consuming and the cost is high by this way, so this study adopts the finite element method to simulate the deep drawing forming in order to reduce the processing cost and time, furthermore to predict the thickness distribution of the product and to find the suitable forming parameters. The material properties and forming parameters have the significant influences to the deep drawing forming, such as strain hardening, plastic strain rate, friction and lubrication, blank holder force, radii of die and punch etc. In this study, two popular commercial FEA software, SUPERFORM and DEFORM, have been used to simulate hemisphere deep drawing forming, and the analysis results will be in comparison with experiment results published to verify the correctness of FEM simulations. Throughout this study, the effects of the blank holder force, the radii of die and punch, the gap between punch and die, the frictional coefficient etc upon the maximum forming force and the minimum thickness, are discussed systematically. After a series of simulations, the comparisons between the SUPERFORM and DEFORM show a good agreement with the experiment and the error is very small.