Virtual process design on combined quasi-static and high-speed forming

Sheet metal forming processes play a key role in a vast number of manufacturing cycles. The pursuit of novel approaches and enhancements of process chains is limited by the tremendous cost of experimental investigations. Hence, virtual process design is a suitable tool to overcome this limitation and to investigate new aspects of the processes via computer aided design. This work focuses on the optimization of a class of triggering pulses utilized in combined quasi-static and electromagnetic high-speed forming that avoid reverse currents. As typical example double exponential pulses are treated. Non-linear, constrained optimization exploiting a LSDYNA simulation of the forming process is used to determine parameters defining a triggering current pulse, yielding an enhanced forming result, in terms of sharper drawing radii. A more detailed discussion of the method is presented in [1]. (© 2015 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)