Investigation of material deformation in multi-pass conventional metal spinning

This paper reports a study on material deformation during a multi-pass conventional spinning. A Finite Element (FE) analysis model has been developed based on a 5-pass conventional spinning experiment. The explicit Finite Element solution method has been used to model this multi-pass spinning process. Effects of mass scaling and reduced integration linear element used in the FE simulation have been evaluated by using various energy histories obtained from the FE analysis. The numerical results suggest that among three tool force components the axial force is the highest while the tangential force is the lowest. Certain correlations have been found between the FE analysis results and measured dimensions of the spun part. The blank thickness decreases after each forward pass and there are almost no thickness changes during the backward pass. Stress distributions of the local forming zone of the workpiece in both forward and backward passes have also been analysed, which gives an insight into the material deformation during the spinning process. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.