A Study on the Hot Forging Process Development for an Automotive Aluminum Lower Arm by Computer Aided Engineering

CAE를 활용한 자동차 알루미늄 로어암의 열간단조 공정개발에 관한 연구

Lower arm for automobile has been made in steel traditionally. Nowadays steel is being substituted fur aluminum to reduce weight of automobile. Widely applied production method of aluminum component has been casting processes or cast/forging processes. But casting or cast/forging processes have limits of application to parts which is required high strength durability like automotive component. In this research, hot forging process has been adopted to produce aluminum lower arm to ensure required mechanical properties. To reduce production cost, 2 pieces with 1 blow process was developed. Optimization and verification of hot forging process for aluminum lower arm was performed by computer aided engineering using finite volume methods.