Numerical simulation of abrasive cutoff operation based on ALE adaptive meshing technique

Metal cutting is one of the most important and commonly used manufacturing processes in industry and has been studied for years; however, accurate simulation of cutoff operation is still a big challenge because of the complexity of the material removal process. The main challenge for the classical simulation method is computational difficulties during the material removal process, and furthermore, the material deletion criterion has to be somehow empirical. To conquer these problems, a more robust and efficient simulation technique for the cutoff process is proposed herein, in which the material removal is achieved through continuously adjusting mesh nodes on contact surfaces based on ALE adaptive meshing technique, instead of deleting elements. Finally, this new simulation technique is used to predict the heat partition and temperature field evolution during the cutoff operation of the steel plate. It is found that the obtained simulation results agree well with those by the analytical approach, demonstrating its effectiveness.