Optimal closed die finish forgings for nimonic80-A alloy using FEM method

Conventional closed die forging, is widely used for manufacture of superalloy parts. Despite recent technological advancements in the area of forging design, empirical and trial-and-error methods are still widely used in forging super alloy materials. This paper investigates the effect of flash thickness and various geometrical forging design parameters including internal and external drafts and internal and external corner radii, on the die cavity filling, forging load and raw material cost when forging Nimonic80-A a superalloy material. A new design methodology based on DOE-designated fractional factorial and FE simulations is proposed to establish optimal closed die finish forging and to find the optimum values of the design parameters. Also a response-surface-methodology (RSM) based method for forging load prediction is presented.