Thermal Fatigue Analysis of Hot Forging Closed Dies

Abstract The aim of this work is to develop a numerical subroutine for the commercial finite element method software QFORM VX 8.1.4 capable of predicting, simultaneously, regions of closed dies which are prone to thermal fatigue as well as the number of cycles required for thermal fatigue cracking. The numerical subroutine was based on Manson (thermal fatigue) and Coffin-Manson (number of cycles) equations. Hot forging of AISI 1045 grinding balls using AISI H13 closed dies was performed and the numerical and experimental results were compared. The findings indicated that after forging 66 grinding balls, the numerical model achieved steady state for the temperature inside the die. After forging 600 grinding balls, both the experimental and numerical results showed that the regions of the dies subjected to the highest thermal gradient were prone to thermal fatigue. In addition to that, the numerically predicted values for the onset of thermal cracking were consistent with the experimental results: 517 and 600 cycles, respectively.