The widely-used updated Lagrangian finite element method has been a powerful tool for analysis of nonsteady large deformation as in metal forming but involves intermediate remeshing stages due to the often fast degeneration of mesh. The effective implimentation of the finite element method for nonsteady state metal forming analysis requires a reliable method of mesh generation for initial and intermediate workpiece meshes in order to carry out a fast and accurate finite element analysis of forging processes.
The present work is concerned with the development of a new scheme of automatic mesh generation for two-dimensional forging problems. The proposed mesh generation scheme is based on the construction of a so-called Surface Adaptive Layer(SAL) and the subsequent successive peeling of internal mesh layers in the workpiece by quadrilateral elements of good mesh quality.
In order to show the effectiveness of the method, the proposed mesh generation scheme has been applied to construction of mesh for some shapes of general boundary contours as well as to the initial and remeshing stages for two-dimensional rigid-plastic finite element analyses of rib-web forging and complicate combined forging. The computational results have shown that the proposed method of mesh generation can be effectively used for finite element analysis of various forging processes.
