FE simulation of a coupled injection molding sheet metal forming process

A three-dimensional model for the numerical simulation of a coupled injection molding sheet metal forming process will be presented. The material behaviour of the sheet metal component has been considered to be elasto-thermoplastic. For this purpose, the commercial finite element method package LS-Dyna is used for the simulation. Currently, LS-Dyna does not provide the possibility to consider the heat transfer between the plastic melt and the sheet component within fluid structure interaction simulations. In order to account for the temperature increase in the sheet metal component due to the contact with the melt, additional thermal boundary conditions have been applied on the workpiece. A comparison between simulation and experimental results shows a high agreement with regard to the forming characteristics of the sheet during the injection phase. Depending on the pseudoplastic flow properties of the plastic melt the pressure development in the cavity is also predicted with a high accuracy.