Journal of Materials Processing Technology 192193 (2007) 17

Process design for closed-die forging of bevel gear by nite element analyses
J.-H. Song a , Y.-T. Im b,
a

Metallurgical Engineering Lab, R&D Division, Korea Automotive Technology Institute, 74 Yongjung-Ri, Pungse-Myun, Chonan, Chungnam 330-912, South Korea b Computer Aided Materials Processing Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, ME3227, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 373-1 Kusong-dong, Yusong-gu, Taejon 305-701, South Korea

Abstract In this study, process design for closed-die forging of a bevel gear used for a component of automobile transmission was made using threedimensional nite element simulations. Process variables of the closed-die forging of the bevel gear were selected to be the pressing type, punch location, and billet diameter. Based on FE simulation results, appropriate process design without causing under-lling and folding defect was determined. In addition, with design of a die set including die insert and stress ring, cold forging of the bevel gear was experimented to estimate effectiveness of the designed process. From experiments, it was found that bevel gear with complete formation of the teeth was obtained without making any forming defects although ash in a forged product and punch fracture was occurred due to a slight difference in the punch stroke during formation. Through comparison of results between experiments and FE simulations, it was found that die clamping device should be modied for increase of the clamping force and improvement of the die safety. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Bevel gear; Closed-die forging; Process design; Die design; Finite element analysis

1. Introduction Differential bevel gears, widely used as a component of automobile transmission, have been conventionally manufactured by machining. However, with increase of the market demand on reduction of the production cost, cold forging has been gradually applied as an alternative method of machining. It has competitive advantages such as good surface nish, improved mechanical properties, and dimensional accuracy of the formed products. Especially, closed-die forging in near-net-shape has been well known as an effective process in reducing manufacturing costs. However, since closed-die forging has high risk of causing under-lling or die fracture due to higher forming load and die clamping force required during deformation, skillful process and die design is required to achieve productivity and competitiveness of the process. With advancement of computing technologies, for reducing development time and cost, computer aided engineering such as

Corresponding author at: CAMP National Research Laboratory, South Korea. Tel.: +82 42 869 3227; fax: +82 42 869 3210. E-mail address: ytim@kaist.ac.kr (Y.-T. Im). 0924-0136/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2007.04.081

nite element (FE) analysis and process design system has been actively introduced in the eld of metal forming. The FE analysis provides a die designer with various forming knowledge such as material behavior, distribution of stress and strain, and elastic deformation of dies without experiments. Thus, many researchers, Doege and Nagele [1], Szentmihali et al. [2], and Mamalis et al. [3] have paid attention to application of FE simulations in gear manufacturing. Also, in order to apply a process design system in gear manufacturing, Song and Im [4,5] have determined a major design parameter predicting the risk of under-lling of a tooth die cavity in the spur gear extrusion through three-dimensional FE simulations. They developed the process design system with rule-base using major design parameters. However, there have been rare studies reported regarding the process design of bevel gears. In this study, process design for closed-die forging of the bevel gear was carried out using three-dimensional nite element simulations and experiments. To achieve this, for a spherical bevel gear with teeth number 10, the pressing type, punch location, and billet diameter were determined as process variables of the closed-die forging and inuence of determined variables on formability of the product was investigated through FE simulations. Based on the uni-directional forging among the designed

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processes predicted as the defect-free process through FE simulations, a cold forging die set including die insert and stress ring was designed using an empirical die design equation. Cold forging of the bevel gear with the billet material of AISI1020 was experimented to estimate effectiveness of the designed process as well. From experiments, it was found that the bevel gear with complete formation of the teeth was obtained without forming a defect in the workpiece through the designed closed-die forging process. However, ash in forged gear and punch fracture were occurred due to the mismatch of the punch stroke during formation. Finally, through comparison of results between experiments and FE simulations, a relationship between the punch stoke and die expansion force was estimated and it was found that an additional clamping device increasing die clamping forces was needed to improve the die safety. The present approach will be useful for practical use in industry. 2. Process design using FE simulations 2.1. Geometry of the bevel gear In this study, the bevel gear product used as a component of the automobile transmission was determined for the closeddie forming process design. Fig. 1 shows the specication and dimension of the bevel gear selected, of which teeth number, module, and pressure angle were 10 , 5.08 , and 22.5 , respectively. Also, lower surface of the gear was in a spherical shape while its upper surface was at. Maximum diameter and hole diameter of the gear were 56.9 and 19.2 mm, respectively. For the selected bevel gear, process design according to the selected process variables for the cold closed-die forming was carried out. 2.2. Process design In this study, the pressing type, punch location, and initial billet diameter were selected as process variables for the closeddie forging of the bevel gear. Inner hole of the gear product was

Fig. 1. Specication and dimension of the bevel gear selected for the closed-die forming process design.

assumed to be manufactured by trimming after cold forming was performed. Thus, in the process design, punch and lower die were designed to have protruded geometry for the sake of convenience of trimming process and material saving. Height of protruded geometry was decided to prevent direct contact between the initial billet with teeth prole of dies at the initial forming stage. Fig. 2 shows designed processes for the closed-die forming of bevel gears according to variation of process variables. The initially designed process was the uni-directional forming with the billet diameter of 25 mm. Based on the initially designed process, the processes were re-designed for the bi-directional forging with pressing the workpiece through the punch and ejector simultaneously. Also, in the uni-directional forming, changing punch location to the at surface of the product instead of the spherical surface of the product was carried out as well. Finally, the initial billet diameter was increased to 30 and 35 mm, respectively. For the designed processes, the inuence of process variables on formability of the workpiece was investigated through three-dimensional FE simulations in the present investigation.

Fig. 2. Designed processes for the closed-die forging of the bevel gear for three-dimensional FE analyses.

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2.3. FE simulations In this study, an in-house FE program CAMPform3D [6,7] was used to investigate formability of the designed processes. It is composed of a solver based on the thermo-rigid-viscoplastic approach and remeshing module adopting master grid approach and octree based renement algorithm [811]. Teeth prole of the spherical bevel gear was calculated from the geometric equation reported from the literature [12] and its three-dimensional die surface and triangular surface meshes were created using the commercialized program I-DEAS. The workpiece used for analyses was AISI4130 whose material property was available in the report of ICFG [13]: = 900 0.2 (MPa) (1)

Here and are the effective stress and strain, respectively. The punch velocity was assumed to be 1.0 mm/s. Considering geometrically rotational symmetry, only half of the tooth was used in simulations in order to save the simulation time. Constant shear friction factor 0.1 was used in simulations. 2.3.1. Variation of the pressing type Comparison of the formability between uni-directional and bi-directional pressing forgings was carried out when the billet diameter was 25 mm. Fig. 3 shows the contour plot of the effective strain distribution of the deformed workpiece predicted from FE analyses. Punch strokes of uni-directional and bi-directional pressing forgings were 40 and 20 mm, respectively, considering the punch and ejector moved simultaneously in the bi-directional forming. In the uni-directional forging, folding defect of the workpiece was predicted on the protruded region as the material was deformed toward the die teeth region compared to better formability in the bi-directional forging. This was because the die cavity was efciently lled up by upset deformation of the workpiece occurred in the center of height. In Fig. 3, it can be seen that the effective strain of the workpiece was symmetrically distributed in the bi-directional forging and maximum effective strain value of the workpiece in the uni-directional forging was slightly higher than that in the bidirectional forging. Fig. 4 shows comparisons of loadstroke curves obtained from FE analyses between bi-directional and uni-directional forgings. As shown in this gure, stiff rising of forming loads was commonly observed according to increase of the punch stroke. The predicted maximum forming loads of the punch in uni- and bi-directional forgings were 3012 and 2503 kN, respectively. Thus, it was construed that formability of the bi-directional forming is better than that of the uni-directional forming in terms of forming defect and load. 2.3.2. Variation of the punch location In the uni-directional forging with the billet diameter 25 mm, punch location was changed to the at surface of the gear instead of the spherical surface of the gear as shown in the second and third in Fig. 2. Fig. 5 shows deformed shape of the workpiece predicted from the FE analysis when the punch stroke was 40 mm.

Fig. 3. Contour plots of the effective strain distribution of deformed workpiece obtained from FE analyses for (a) uni-directional and (a) bi-directional pressing forgings.

Fig. 4. Comparisons of loadstroke curves obtained from three-dimensional FE analyses between bi-directional and uni-directional pressing forgings.

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Fig. 7. Force applied to dies and the punch predicted from FE analyses according to variation of billet diameters.

Fig. 5. Deformed shape of the workpiece when the punch was located on the at face of the product obtained from FE analyses.

As shown in this gure, folding phenomenon was observed on the protruded region irrespective of the punch location. Also, at the end region of the at surface of the upper die, folding defect was additionally observed because material ow toward the at surface was prevented as punch progresses. The predicted maximum forming load was 2846 kN. Thus, in the uni-directional forming, punch should be located at the spherical surface of the bevel gear in order to reduce the load requirement. 2.3.3. Variation of the billet diameter Fig. 6 shows deformed shapes of the workpiece predicted from FE simulations when the billet diameter was (a) 30 mm and (b) 35 mm, respectively. As shown in this gure, folding defect observed in the case of the billet diameter 25 mm was disappeared according to increase of the billet diameter. However, when the billet diameter was 35 mm, under-lling at the bottom of the protruded region was found due to increase of its height. Thus, it was found that formability of the process could be improved by changing the billet diameter. Fig. 7 shows the force applied to dies and the punch predicted from FE analyses according to variation of the billet diameters. In this gure, Fp and Fud are the forming load and die expansion

force at complete lling of the die cavity, respectively. In order to achieve complete formation without ash and die safety, clamping device enduring die expansion force, Fud , was required. In this gure, the predicted forming loads in the case of the billet diameter of 30 and 35 mm were 3876 and 4789 kN, respectively. Since the punch area contacting with the workpiece was enlarged according to increase of the billet diameter, forming load was increased as well. However, the required clamping force was decreased due to reduction of the contact area between the workpiece and upper die. In case of the billet diameter of 30 mm, die expansion force was predicted as 1.86 times of forming load. 3. Die design for the closed-die forging 3.1. Die design In this study, die design was made for the designed unidirectional process with the initial billet diameter of 30 mm through FE simulations. Fig. 8(a) shows the designed die set for the closed-die forging of the bevel gear, in which shrink tting between die insert and stress ring was applied to improve the die safety. Material type of the die insert, punch and ejector contacting with the workpiece was commonly decided to be AISI M-2 having high yield strength in order to endure higher forming pressures and minimize its elastic deformation. On the other hand, since stress ring has little inuenced on gear formation, its material type was selected to be AISI H-13. In order to endure die expansion force during formation, eight bolts with M20 were used as the die clamping device. In the die design, the outer radius of the stress ring was decided to be three times of maximum radius of the gear. Also, the inner radius of the stress ring was decided from the following empirical equation: RSi = R RSo (2)

Fig. 6. Deformed shapes of the workpiece obtained from FE simulations with the billet diameters of (a) 30 mm and (b) 35 mm, respectively.

Here R, RSi , and RSo are the average value between the billet radius and maximum radius of the gear, inner and outer radius of the stress ring, respectively. Since R and RSo were 21.5 and 87 mm, respectively, RSi was designed to be 43 mm. In addition, a shrink tting ratio, ratio between the shrink tting value and inner radius of the stress ring, was determined to be 0.45%. Fig. 8(b) shows the photograph of the manufactured lower die with teeth prole for the closed-die forging of the bevel gear based on the present die design. Bevel gear teeth of dies were manufactured by electrical

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Fig. 9. Photographs of cold forged shapes of bevel gear according to variation of punch strokes: (a) front view and (b) top view.

Fig. 8. (a) Designed die set and (b) photograph of the manufactured lower die with teeth prole for the closed-die forging of bevel gear.

discharging machine and grooves in the die were machined off for fastening bolts between the upper and lower dies. 3.2. Experimental set-up Experiments were carried out using the hydraulic press with the limiting forming load of 400 t. Tooth die cavity was machined through wire cutting and punches for hollow and solid gear extrusions were separately manufactured. The relationship between the forming load and punch stroke was measured using linear voltage displacement transducer and load cell. 4. Results and discussion In this study, the closed-die forging of the bevel gear was experimented in order to verify effectiveness of the designed process. AISI1020 was selected as the material type of the billet because of the limiting load of the hydraulic press used for experiments. Diameter and height of the billet were determined to be 29.9 and 46 mm, respectively. With annealing of the billet, phosphate coating + MoS2 was used as a lubricant. During experiments, careful control of the punch stroke should be made

at the nal forming stage in order to escape excessive increase of punch stroke resulted in stiff rise of forming loads. Fig. 9 shows photographs of cold forged shapes of the bevel gear according to variation of punch strokes. As shown in this gure, teeth prole of the bevel gear was completely forged without folding or under-lling of the product. Final forming load was approximately 1863 kN. However, ash on the forged gear was formed due to elongation of bolts according to a slightly larger punch stroke than the one required. Also, as shown in Fig. 10, punch was fractured during the punch ejection due to mismatch of the center axis between upper and lower dies. Fig. 11 shows photographs of the upper die with fractured lower part of the punch and punch head fractured in the experiment. As shown in this gure, due to the cracking at the punch head, lower part of the punch was tted at the upper die.

Fig. 10. Drawing of the die and punch when the elongation of bolts was occurred.

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Fig. 11. Photographs of (a) upper die with fractured lower part of the punch and (b) heading part of the punch fractured in the experiment of closed-die forging of bevel gear.

In order to investigate die expansion force due to the excessive punch stroke, FE simulation was carried out. In order to obtain material property of AISI1020, a simple upsetting was carried out for the specimen having the diameter 30 mm and height 15 mm. Fig. 12 shows the stressstrain curve measured from the simple upsetting test. Also, calibrated stressstrain equation of AISI1020 was determined as follows: = 649.23 0.06 (MPa) (3)

Here and are the effective stress and strain, respectively. Fig. 13 shows the analysis condition and mesh layouts of the workpiece and dies for the three-dimensional FE analysis of closed-die forging of bevel gear. The numbers of nodes and elements of the workpiece were 2759 and 2100, respectively, and 1/10 model used to reduce the analysis time. Constant shear friction factor was assumed to be 0.15 and material property obtained from the simple upset test was used. Fig. 14(a) shows comparisons of the deformed shapes between the experiment and FE simulation at the punch stroke 24.7 mm. Deformed shape obtained from FE simulations was in good agreement with that obtained from experiments. Fig. 14(b) shows comparisons of the loadstroke curve between the experiment and FE simulation. Forming load predicted from the FE simulation matched well with that obtained

Fig. 13. Analysis condition and created meshes of the workpiece and dies for the three-dimensional FE analysis of closed-die forging of bevel gear.

Fig. 12. Stressstrain curve through upset experiments for AISI1020.

Fig. 14. Comparisons of (a) the deformed shapes and (b) loadstroke curve between the experiment and FE simulation.

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required for complete formation without causing any defects. Based on the process veried from FE simulations, the die setup was designed and the bevel gear with the billet material of AISI1020 was cold forged. From experiments, the bevel gear with complete formation of teeth was obtained without forming defect in the workpiece with the designed process. However, ash in the forged gear and punch fracture was occurred due to the over punch stroke during formation. Through comparison of results between experiments and FE simulations, the relationship between the punch stoke and die expansion force was estimated and it was found that an additional clamping device increasing the die clamping force was needed to improve the die safety. From this study, it was expected that designed process could be efciently used in the bevel gear forging for practical use in the related industry.
Fig. 15. Forming load required and force applied to the upper die obtained from the three-dimensional FE analysis according to increase of the punch stroke.

Acknowledgement The authors wish to thank the grant of National Research Laboratory of the Ministry of Science and Technology through the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, without which this work would not have been possible. References
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from experiments although the forming load predicted from the FE simulation was slightly higher than that obtained from experiments at the initial punch stroke. Fig. 15 shows the required forming load and expansion force applied to the upper die predicted from the three-dimensional FE analysis according to increase of the punch stroke. Considering that forming load obtained from experiments was 1863 kN at the nal forming stage, the upper die expansion force predicted from the FE simulation was 1620 kN. Since maximum yielding force of the bolt used in the dies clamping was 196 kN, designed total die clamping force was 1568 kN. Thus, due to the slight mismatch of the punch stroke, elongation of the bolt was occurred and increase of die clamping force was needed to improve the die safety. 5. Conclusions In the present study, process design for closed-die forging of the bevel gear using three-dimensional FE simulations was carried out. As the process variables in the closed-die forging of the bevel gear, the pressing type, punch location, and billet diameter were used for investigating the material ow and load levels