Analysis of distortion of coupled process forming to welding using fem-based virtual manufacturing with experimental verification

In this paper, the numerical model of coupled process forming to welding by means of FEM is developed in order to analyse the displacement. Simufact.Forming and Simufact.Welding are utilized to execute a thermomechanical FEM analysis of forming to welding coupled process. Prior to welding process, a sheet metal bending process is performed in order to bend the 2mm plate into a U-shaped geometry. The material used for this process is S235 low carbon steel along with filler material ER70s. Goldak's double ellipsoid model is chosen as the heat source model for GMAW simulation. A series of sheet metal bending and GMAW experiment is executed in order to verify the distortion result produced by FEM analysis. ABB IRB 2400/16 is the assigned robotic welding equipment used in GMAW process while sheet metal bending machine SUNFLUID 800/2007 is utilized for sheet metal bending process. For the calibration model, a forming force between FE simulation will be compared with the forming force of experimental bending process. The final results have shown that the distortion result of FEM analysis of coupled process forming to welding shows a good agreement with the experimental coupled process.