Investigating the effects of cross wedge rolling preforming operation and die forging with flash brakes on forging titanium hip implants

To reduce production costs of forged parts, different approaches are possible. Especially for valuable materials like titanium, material costs represent a large part of the production costs. Therefore, reducing the initial material can decrease the total costs significantly. In order to identify the potential for improvements, an existing forging sequence was investigated. For a titanium hip implant, a forging sequence was developed. To reduce the initially needed material, cross wedge rolling as a preforming operation and die forging with flash brakes was investigated. The influence of the different stages on the final result was analysed and presented in detail. To increase the prediction accuracy of the newly developed flash-reduced forging sequence and decrease iteration loops of die designs, feasible simulation parameters considering the boundary conditions of the forging environment were investigated. This is done using Finite Element Analysis (FEA), considering form filling, process stability, die stress and press forces. Using cross wedge rolling and die forging with flash brakes, the newly developed forging sequence reduces the flash rate significantly from 69% to 32%.