Methods And Systems For Conducting A Time-Marching Numerical Simulation Of A Deep Drawing Metal Forming Process For Manufacturing A Product or Part

A system for conducting a time-marching simulation of a deep drawing metal forming process for manufacturing a product or part comprising:

• an input/output (I/O) interface;
• a memory for storing computer readable code for a FEA application module;
• at least one processor coupled to the memory, said at least one processor executing the computer readable code in the memory to cause the FEA application module to perform operations of:
• receiving a FEA model representing a product or part made at least in part of metal, a set of metal necking failure criteria and characteristics of a neck, the FEA model containing at least a plurality of finite elements that represents the product's metal portion, the necking failure criteria containing respective critical strain and fracture strain values in various strain directions, the characteristics of the neck including the neck's width and a profile of strain values within the neck's width;
• and
• obtaining numerically-calculated structural behaviors of the product by conducting a time-marching numerical simulation using the FEA model, at each of a plurality of solution cycles in the time-marching simulation performing following operations at each integration point of each of the finite elements:
• (a) identifying major and minor strain values and directions from computed strain values at said each integration point;
• (b) calculating an equivalent metal necking failure strain value in the major strain direction with a formula based on the corresponding critical and fracture strain values in the set of metal failure criteria, the characteristics of the neck and a characteristic dimension of said each of the finite elements;
• (c) determining a metal necking failure, which occurs when the major strain value is greater than the equivalent metal necking failure strain value;
• and
• whereby the product is manufactured in a deep drawing metal forming process based on the numerically-calculated structural behaviors obtained in the time-marching simulation.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium containing computer instructions for conducting a time-marching simulation of a deep drawing metal forming process for manufacturing a product or part, said computer instructions when executed on a computer system cause the computer system to perform operations of:

• receiving, in a computer system having a finite element analysis (FEA) application module installed thereon, a FEA model representing a product or part made at least in part of metal, a set of metal necking failure criteria and characteristics of a neck, the FEA model containing at least a plurality of finite elements that represents the product's metal portion, the metal necking failure criteria containing respective critical strain and fracture strain values in various strain directions, the characteristics of the neck including the neck's width and a profile of strain values within the neck's width;
• obtaining, with the FEA application module, numerically-calculated structural behaviors of the product by conducting a time-marching numerical simulation using the FEA model, at each of a plurality of solution cycles in the time-marching simulation performing following operations at each integration point of each of the finite elements:
• (a) identifying major and minor total strain values and directions from computed strain values at said each integration point;
• (b) calculating an equivalent metal necking failure strain value in the major strain direction with a formula based on the corresponding critical and fracture strain values in the set of metal failure criteria, the characteristics of the neck and a characteristic dimension of said each of the finite elements;
• and
• (c) determining a metal necking failure, which occurs when the major strain value is greater than the equivalent metal necking failure strain value;
• and
• whereby the product is manufactured in a deep drawing metal forming process based on the numerically-calculated structural behaviors obtained in the time-marching simulation.