• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.44-55
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• 2001

The flow behavior of semi-solid materials (SSM) is required to assist the industrial application of thixoforming technology. Particularly, to reduce many lead times, many numerical analysis packages have been developed to simulate required metal forming processes. The objectives of the development of SEMI-FORM for thixoforming process design are to predict the effect of various process variables such as pressing force, die temperature, and die velocity. However, there have not been any reports which adapt these packages to the specific characteristics of SSM. SO, this paper presents an overview of the development of thixoforming simulator of SEMI-FORM. The solver and post-processor of SEMI-FORM S/W for an automated thixoforming process design with arbitrarily shaped die are composed of FORTRAN Power Station 4.0 and Visual Basic 5.0, respectively. This developing SEMI-FORM S/W would be very useful for thixoforming practitioners and engineers to select the optimal process conditions to produce automotive parts with high quality.