Development of optimum process design system by numerical simulation

Abstract

Now, the development of optimum forming process design system based on computer simulation to reduce the time consumption is strongly required in the industries. In this study, the optimum process design system is newly developed in conjunction with the nonlinear FEA code and the nonlinear optimization code. In the latter code, “Sweeping Simplex Method” is newly proposed, which can find the global minimum. The accuracy and quickness of this method to find the global minimum of objective function, which have several local minimum points, is confirmed by comparison with the grid method. This numerical system is applied to the process design of complicate shaped cup deep drawing. In order to form the sheet metal with uniform thickness, “Deviation of thickness from uniform average thickness” is employed as the objective function, and the global minimum point in the design variable space is searched by “Sweeping Simplex Method”. For the design variables, the heights of two punches in first stage forming are employed. The optimum process condition was determined by using this numerical code and also the validity of this code was confirmed by the comparison with the experimental observation results.