Journal of

Materials
Processing
Technology
ELSEVIER J. Mater. Process. Technol. 45 (1994) 69-74

IMPLICIT AND DYNAMIC EXPLICIT SOLUTIONS

OF BLADE FORGING
USING THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
Behzad Soltani, Kjell Mattiasson and Alf Samuelsson

Department of Structural Mechanics

Chalmers University of Technology
S - 412 96 G6teborg, Sweden

ABSTRACT
Blade forging has been studied and solved by two elastic-plastic finite element codes, NIKE2D and
DYNA2D, as a two-dimensional plane-strain problem. The main difference between the two codes is that
the first one is implicit while the second is dynamic explicit. The efficiency of implicit and explicit solutions
regarding blade forging has been studied.
The initial position of the circular preform was optimized so that the corner spaces of the dies become
filled and the pressure on the dies become as small as possible thus satisfying the design condition of flash-
less forging. The grading of the finite element mesh for the preform has been studied and been found to
be of great importance.
1. INTRODUCTION
Blade Forming is one of the bulk forming pro- Rebelo et al. [4]using rigid-viscoplastic mate-
cesses in which two dies form an original billet of rial, solved the problem in plane strain condition
metal, normally in circular shape. Figure 1 shows for several coefficients of friction. The mesh in-
the shapes of billet and dies at the beginning and cluded 120 linear elements. They also made ex-
end of the process. This problem as other closed periments on a wax model and compared the
die forging processes involves contact surfaces results with the numerical results.
with friction as well as geometrical and material Kang et al. [5] have established systematic pro-
nonlinearities. cedures for preform design in blade forging by
The important point in this process is to deter- means of a forward loading and backward tracing
mine a position for the preform which results in simulation.
flashless blade forging, while the blade and its sur- During past years, the efficiency and accuracy
faces have got suitable mechanical characteristics. of the two finite element methods, implicit and ex-
Precision forging of blades reduces machining to plicit, has been considered for metal forming pro-
a minimum. The family of blade airfoils are impor- cess. In implicit codes for each load step, the equa-
tant family of cross sections of parts, so the forging tions of equilibrium are solved in an iterative
of such parts will be a beneficial process. To obtain manner, while in explicit codes dynamic equations
a useful blade, with enough good characteristics, are solved with so small time steps that a stable
one need to simulate this process beforehand in- solution is obtained. In metal forming, though
cluding all the complexibilities. This can be often quasistatic, it is still possible to use a dynamic
achieved only with a numerical simulation. The ini- code and solve the problems by an explicit method.
tial position of the billet and the forging force are In these problems, the inertia effect caused by the
the most important results of such a simula- mass matrix are often negligible even if the speed
tion[I-3]. is increased in order to reduce the computer time.
Several solutions to the problem by the finite Several investigations are reported in which the
element method have been reported [2-5]. In two methods are compared[6-8]. It seems to be
these solutions, the flow approach with implicit clear that for enough large and specially 3D prob-
lems, the explicit is better and faster. The majority
method has been used.
of these investigations are performed for sheet

0924-0136/94/$07.00 © 1994 - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

SSDI 0924-0136(94)00162-6
 70
metal forming. The objective cf this study is to
compare the two methods for forging simulation.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM
During the process, which is assumed to be in
plane strain, the dies move slowly, so the process
is quasistatic. The billet is circular and its diameter
is 72 mm and the length of the final shape of the
blade is 163 mm° The airfoil curve of blade is deter-
mined by the upper and lower dies which have been
defined by 34 and 32 point respectively.
In the finite element discritization, the upper and
lower dies and billet are divided into 39,42 and 624
elements, respectively° The total number of nodes
are 841.
I t''' ~ I
!.<
Figure 1. Billet and blade between dies
The friction between dies and material is simulated
by the Coulomb law with friction coefficient of 0.6.
In the implicit solution, the process is steered by a
prescribed linear displacement of the upper die. It
moves down 45 mm during the process. In the ex-
plicit solution the velocity curve is taken as a sine
function modified at start and finish so that the
inertia effect becomes zero at the beginning and
the end of the process. The size of velocity is opti-
mized and will be discussed later on.
The material is supposed to be elastic-plastic with
elasticity of hypoelastic kind and plasticity of gen-
eralized von Mises type for large deformations.
The flow rule is a power law plasticity with isotropic
hardening, as follows:
O'y --~ K(£ 0 + E--P)n (1)
in which O'y,K, n, g0,and ~-Pare the current yield
stress, strength coefficient, hardening exponent,
initial strain and effective plastic strain, respective-
ly
The characteristics used are E=210 MPa,
v=0.3, 0=8400 kg/m 3, K=658MPa, n=0.19 for
the billet and E=2100 MPa, v=0.3, Q=8400
kg/m3 for the dies.
3. D E S C R I P T I O N O F T H E C O D E S
The two finite element codes used were
Nike2D, Hallquist (1986), and Dyna2D, Hall-
quist(1988). Nike2D is an implicit code for static
and dynamic problems. It can handle finite de-
formation in two dimensions. The Updated La-
grangian formulation with the Green-Naghdi
stress rate and a four noded isoparametric and
quadrilateral element with 2x2 gaussian points are
used[9].
Dyna2D is a dynamic and hydrodynamic code m
which the explicit method is used. A four noded
isoparametric and quadrilateral element with one
integration point is used. To prevent zero energy
deformations, hourglass viscosity in several ways
can be introduced [10].
In both codes, contact algorithm will control
the movement between surfaces. At sliding lines
with friction interface springs are used to prevent
penetration of one node into the surfaces of anoth-
er body. The Coulomb law with a penalty coeffi-
cient is used in the contact algorithm.
In both codes, rezoning technique is available
for replacing the deformed mesh with a more
smooth one.
4. I M P L I C I T AND EXPLICIT
PROCEDURES
Starting from the weak formulation of the tin-
ear momentum equation, and discritizing it by
quadrilateral elements, results in a system of ordi-
nary differential equations of second order in time
domain, with obvious notations
Mii + F(int)(u, u) = P(u, b, t) (2)

In metal forming, the equations are nonlinear
but the inertia term can be disregarded. The qua-
sistatic equations have been solved by an implicit
method by Nike2D. They are solved by the BFGS
quasi N e w t o n - Raphson method.
The method is unconditionally stable but the
time steps are restricted in order to get an accept-
able accuracy.
In the dynamic-explicit solution by Dyna2D,
the problem is solved by the central difference
method. The mass matrix is lumped so that the
equations become uncoupled.
The step size is limited by the stability condition
/.....-
A t < hmi n V/-~ (3)
where hmin is the smallest side of the smallest ele-
ment in the mesh.
This is calculated automatically by the code,
and it is often of order of micro seconds. Duration
time in a real process can be about one minute,
meaning that the computing time by the explicit
method would be too long.
t J
Figure 2. Effects of suitable and unsuitable
initial position of billet
In order to decrease the computing time either
the total duration time is decreased or the density
is increased to allow larger time steps.
Both methods must be handled by care as they vio-
late the real data. Byour experience itis, however,
71
possible to increase the velocities considerably
without any unacceptable inertia effects in the re-
sults. We have used this method.
The effect of artificial inertia has been studied
in the final step by comparing the effective plastic
strain due to a reduction of the initial high velocity.
5. C O M P U T A T I O N S
The initial position of the billet between the
dies should be determined in such a way that mate-
rial flow reach corners on both sides almost at the
same time. Firstly, it should satisfy the flashless
forging condition defining closed die forging. Sec-
ondly, the pressure at corners should be almost
equal which is useful for both dies and product,
and the forging load should be as low as possible.
To find the optimal position, the problem has been
solved with different positions. Figure 2 illustrates
the results of one bad case of setting initial position
(the center of billet is located at 6 mm from the cen-
ter of the dies) and the optimal one (at - 11 mm for
implicit and explicit methods).
Figure . An unsuitable mesh and its solution
The third condition that determines the setting
position is the requirement to get the corners filled
more easily. To be able to fill the corners complete-
ly the mesh itself has to be chosen with great care.
Due to small cavities in the corners the elements
which will flow into the corners have to be small,
corresponding to the size of the corners.
Several meshes with different number of ele-
ments and nodes and different configurations have
been used to find the best. For this, the elements at
72
the boundary were around three times smaller than
the internal dements. This mesh could fill the cor-
ners. Figure 3 shows one of these meshes and its fi-
nal form and Figure 1 shows the best one.
The third factor which can prevent corners to
be filled is the angle position of the initial mesh of
the billet. In final stages, the setting of elements
near the corners should correspond to the shape of
the corners. By rotation of the initial mesh, a better
result may be obtained. In bad situations, one ele-
ment may lock the motion of metal flow towards
the corners and the solution will not become com-
plete. This rotation is only a computational param-
eter for filling the geometry. In our example the
complete solution was obtained with a rotation of
2 degrees for the implicit and 2.8 degrees for the
explicit method.
At the final steps of the process, the pressure on
the dies will increase and the default penalty coef-
ficient of springs which prevents penetration is not
large enough. Otherwise , penalty coefficients
should be as small as possible. Testing several coef-
ficients for different slidelines and checking the pe-
netrations will determine the optimum for each
slideline, separately.
During the process, when the mesh is highly de-
formed, a rezoning or remeshing technique is nec-
essary to reorder or reproduce the mesh elements.
In our simulation at around half of the termination
time, rezoning was applied and the deformed mesh
was replaced by a smooth one. The contours of ef-
fective plastic strains before and after rezoning
correspond well (figure 4).
0.44 [ tends to an impact problem and this becomes clear
__3
0.15 --~
• ~... _ ~
0.44 ] the second stage we optimize the initial position
Figure 4. Contours of effective plastic strains
before and after rezoning
5.1. I m p l i c i t c o m p u t a t i o n s
In the implicit code, Nike2D, the size and the
number of load steps can be chosen. In the case of
divergence of the N e w t o n - R a p h s o n method, the
load step size is decreased until a primary solution
is found. The corners are probably not filled in this
solution.
In order to fill the corners the optimal setting
position of the billet is sought by trial and error us-
ing a suitable mesh and rotating the initial mesh.
Then the mesh is rezoned and the penalty coeffi-
cients are determined. Due to linearization in each
step of the N e w t o n - R a p h s o n method, errors are
obtained. The load steps should be decreased, until
the changes in results become small enough.
The contours of the effective plastic strains in
the final step, and of the vertical components of the
interface forces on the upper die were compared
for five different load steps and from this the load
step size of 0.5 mm with 300 steps was found to be
optimal.
The other results obtained from this implicit
solution are shown in figure 5, namely the total ver-
tical (forge force) and the horizontal forces on the
upper die on the billet during the process. These
curves show expected trends. The forge force in-
creases during the process and has high value at
the final steps due to the high pressure of the billet
material on the dies at these steps. The horizontal
force on the dies before the final steps is mostly the
effect of billet friction, but at the final steps it in-
creases in a high rate due to the material pressure
on the dies.
5.2. E x p l i c i t c o m p u t a t i o n s
In the explicit code inertia terms have to be in-
cluded. The real process time is ,however, so large
that it is necessary to increase the velocity up to
several hundred times the real one in order to get
efficiency. However, if it is too large, the solution
from the results. In explicit codes the solution al-
ways can be completed unless the Jacobian of an
element becomes negative or the allowable mini-
mum time step of the code is reached or some con-
flicts in the problem definition arises during the
process.
In the first stage we start with the same mesh,
position of the billet as in the implicit solution. In
and the rotation of the billet and determine the
penalty coefficients for prevention of penetration.
 73

In large deformation problems, the elements

1100 become highly distorted if there is no smoothing of
the elements during the process. Sometimes the
903 structure of the initial mesh influences to the
N
70O shape of elements at the final steps. In this case, by
a small change of the position or rotation of the ini-
tial mesh, the difficulty will be removed.

300
1.4
100
0.0 . . . . . .
0 10 20 30 40 mm
KN . . . . . . . .

11o
1.4
9o

70
1.4

3o

lO
o.o ....
10 20 30 40 ram 1.4
loading range
Figure 7. Contours of effective plastic strains
Figure 5. Vertical and horizontal force on the
surface of upper die in implicit and explicit solutions

To prevent zero energy modes due to the use of

only one gaussian point, the F l a n a g a n - B e l y t s c h k o
method with an hourglass artificial viscosity coeffi-
cient of 0.4 was used.
At the third stage, the largest velocity which
does not cause considerable inertia was searched.
The optimized case was at a average velocity of 29
m/s and a termination time of T=0.0015 s.
Figure 6 shows the optimized solutions of ex-
plicit and implicit codes.

6. C O M P A R I S O N S AND
CONCLUSIONS
Penalty coefficients for several slidelines were
in both methods optimized by trial and error. In the
explicit method they were smaller than in the im-
plicit method and easier to find, which made the
solution better.
Optimal initial position and rotation were almost
identical in the two codes giving confidence in the
results.
Figure 6. Explicit (up) and impficit solutions Both solutions were run on a SUN workstation.
The CPU time for the complete solution were 2112
seconds for the implicit and 1652 seconds for the
74

KN REFERENCES
80

60
! \J [1] Sh~,'ff, M. , Bercovier ,M. " Interactive
simulation of a forging process for blades,
in "Numerical Methods in Industrial Ferm-
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N [2] Nguyen Luong Dung, Oskar Malarealaoltz,
40
"Progress in the analysis of unsteady Meted
Forming Process using the Finite Element
.~. Method " in'Numerical Methods in Indus
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[3] Morita ,A., Hattori,S., Tain,K., Takemu-
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40 80 120 160 mm
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KN
827-833
90 [4] Rebelo, N. , Rydstad, H., Scroder, G. '
80 Simulation of material flow in closed,lie
forging by model techniques mid rigid
60 i plastic FEM '" in "Numerical Methods in
t~ Industrial Forming Processes '", pp. 237

40
•~ 20
40 80 120 160 mm
surface of upper die
Figure 8. Distribution of forces on the
surface of upper die for implicit
(up) and explicit solutions at the
half and the end of the process
explicit code. The difference is mainly due to the
large computer time for establishing the tangent
stiffness matrices and the solutions of the systems
of equations in the implicit method. In the explicit
method the equations are independent.
Figures 7 and 8 show the contours of effective
plastic strains and distribution of forces on the sur-
face of the upper die for both implicit and explicit
solutions.
The contours of effective plastic strains have
good agreement between the two solutions. Forces
on the surface of the upper die are identical at half
time and show a reasonable agreement at the final
steps of the process.
Due to fewer control parameters for optimiza-
tion of the explicit solution, this is easier to use.
What should be concluded in this work is that,
in blade forging as a kind of bulk metal forming, the
explicit code is less expensive and more user
friendly compared to the implicit one.
[5]
246,1982
Kang B-S. ,Kim N., Kobayashi S. "Com-
puter-Aided preform design in forging
of an airfoil section blade" in Int. J. Mach
Tools Manufact. Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 43-52,
1990
[6] Mattiasson,M. ,Bernsp~ng,L., Samuels-
son,A, Hamman,T, Sehedin,E., Meland-
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using explicit integration in 3 - D sheet
forming simulation "in "Numerical Meth-
ods in Industrial Forming Processes ", pp.
55-67,1992
[7] Rebeto,N., Nagtegaal, J.C., Taylor, L.M.,
Passmarm,R. "Comparison of implicit and
explicit finite element methods in the sim-
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"Numerical Methods in Indus ,dial Form-
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[8] Haggblad, H.-.~., McEwan, K. "Explicit
versus implicit finite element simulation
of metal powder" in "Numerical Methty.ls
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875-881, 1992
[9] Hallquist,J. 1991. User's manual 1or
Nike2D-A nonlinear, implicit, two-di-
mensional finite element code for solid
mechanics. Report UCRL - MA - 105413,
L~awrence Livermore National Laborato
ry, USA.
II0] Hallquist,J. 1988. User's manual for
Dyna2D-An explicit, two-dimensional
hydrodynamic finite element code with
interactive rezoning and graphical display
Report UCID -18756, Lawrence Liver
more National Laboratory, USA.