Multi-scale through-process modeling and simulation in precision forming of complex components of difficult-to-deform material

Precision forming of complex components of difficult-to-deform material, which satisfies the increasing demands of high performance and light weight in aerospace industries, has become a research frontier in advanced plastic forming domains. Owning to the usage of difficult-to-deform materials and hard-to-form complex structure, and the requirement of excellent service performance, significant unequal deformation takes place during plastic forming of such components, which would increase the forming load, produce forming defects, deteriorate the service performance and make the control and optimization of the forming process difficult. How to coordinate and control the unequal deformation is the key problem urgently to be solved. The through-process multi-scale modeling and simulation are essential for developing control method of unequal deformation. To this end, a through-process multi-scale modeling strategy was proposed in the present work. It is composed of a microscale cellular automaton model which predicts the microstructural morphology development, a mesoscale crystal plasticity model which characterizes the mechanism of unequal deformation, a coupled macro-microscale internal state variable model which predicts the constitutive behavior and microstructure evolution of the material, and a macroscale finite element model which predicts the forming regulations and defects. The strategy was applied to the isothermal local loading forming of large-scale complex titanium alloy component. The obtained results can guide the integrated forming of shape and performance in manufacturing complex components of difficult-to-deform material.