Influence of deformation path on the stress state and damage evolution along the central axis of a large size forged ingot of AISI H13 steel

Abstract

Development of cracks along the center axis of large high strength steel bars commonly occurs during the forging and leads to excessive part rejections. The present investigation aims to develop a better understanding of the evolution of stress-strain states during the forging operation and in particular the effect of deformation path illustrated by die geometry, on the evolution of damage during the cogging of an AISI H13 steel. Hot compression and tensile tests were performed using Gleeble-3800 thermo-mechanical simulator to develop the optimum material model which was then implemented in the finite element (FE) code Forge NxT 3.2® using a developed user subroutine. Normalized Cockcroft and Latham damage criterion and maximum shear stress (Tresca's) theory of failure were used to predict the damage and failure in the center axis of the shaft through FE analysis with three different die shapes: concave, flat, and convex. A comparative study between the three die geometries was conducted to quantify the effects of each of them on the sensitivity to central burst damage. FE model was validated using industrial data. The lowest and highest damage values were found to occur in the case of cogging with concave and flat die, respectively. The coefficient of variation (CoV) is employed as a measure of heterogeneity and it was found that the concave die provides more uniform deformation and most favorable results for the cogging compared to the flat and convex dies. The novel approach, application of concave die successfully implemented at the industrial scale cogging.