• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.359-374
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• 1994

Process sequence design in sheet metal forming process by the finite element method is investigated. The forming of sheet metal into a washing machine container is used to demonstrate the design of an improved process sequence which has fewer operations. The design procedure makes extensive use of the finite element method which has simulation capabilities of elastic-plastic modeling. A one-stage process to make an initial blank to the final product is simulated to obtain information on metal flow requirements. Loading simulation for a conventional method is also performed to evaluate the design criteria which are uniform thickness distribution around the finished part and maximum punch load within limit of available press capacity. The newly designed sequence has two forming operations and can achieve net-shape manufacturing, while the conventional process sequence has three forming operations. This specific case conventional process sequence has three forming operations. This specific case can be considered for application of the method and for development of the sequence design methodology in general.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 1995.10a
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• pp.30-36
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• 1995

Conventionally design for multi-stage cold forging depends on the designer's experience and decision-making. Due to such non-deterministic nature of the process sequence design, a flexible inference engine is needed for process design expert system. In this study, A* searching algorithm was introduced to arrive at the vetter process sequence design considering the number of forming stages and levels of effective strain, effective stress, and forming load during the porcess. In order to optimize the process sequence in producing the final part, cost function was defined and minimized using the proposed A* searching algorithm. For verification of the designed forming sequences, forming experiments and finite element analyses were carried out in the present investigation. The developed expert system using A* searching algorithm can produce a flexible design system based on changes in the number of forming stages and weights.