Comparison of updated Lagrangian FEM with arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian method for

3D thermo-mechanical extrusion of a tube profile

J. Kronsteiner, D. Horwatitsch, and K. Zeman

Citation: AIP Conference Proceedings 1896, 140006 (2017);

View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5008162
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/apc/1896/1
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 Comparison of Updated Lagrangian FEM with Arbitrary
Lagrangian Eulerian method for 3D thermo-mechanical
extrusion of a tube profile
Kronsteiner J.1, a), Horwatitsch D.1, Zeman K.2
1
LKR Leichtmetallkompetenzzentrum Ranshofen GmbH, Austrian Institute of Technology,
Lamprechtshausenerstraße 61, 5282 Ranshofen, Austria
2
JKU Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria
a)
Corresponding author: johannes.kronsteiner@ait.ac.at

Abstract. Thermo-mechanical numerical modelling and simulation of extrusion processes faces several serious
challenges. Large plastic deformations in combination with a strong coupling of thermal with mechanical effects leads to
a high numerical demand for the solution as well as for the handling of mesh distortions. The two numerical methods
presented in this paper also reflect two different ways to deal with mesh distortions. Lagrangian Finite Element Methods
(FEM) tackle distorted elements by building a new mesh (called re-meshing) whereas Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian
(ALE) methods use an “advection” step to remap the solution from the distorted to the undistorted mesh. Another
difference between conventional Lagrangian and ALE methods is the separate treatment of material and mesh in ALE,
allowing the definition of individual velocity fields. In theory, an ALE formulation contains the Eulerian formulation as a
subset to the Lagrangian description of the material. The investigations presented in this paper were dealing with the
direct extrusion of a tube profile using EN-AW 6082 aluminum alloy and a comparison of experimental with Lagrangian
and ALE results. The numerical simulations cover the billet upsetting and last until one third of the billet length is
extruded. A good qualitative correlation of experimental and numerical results could be found, however, major
differences between Lagrangian and ALE methods concerning thermo-mechanical coupling lead to deviations in the
thermal results.

INTRODUCTION
Several methods for the numerical simulation of metal extrusion processes have been developed and used during
the last decades. Still one of the most popular numerical methods for structural analysis in general and forming
processes in particular is the Updated Lagrangian (UL) method (see e.g. [[1]]). Eulerian, Arbitrary Lagrangian
Eulerian (ALE, as described by [[2], [3]]) and mesh-free methods such as Element Free Galerkin (EFG, see e.g.
[[4]]) have gained significance during the last decades. One of the major reasons for the popularity of ALE and
mesh-free methods in comparison to conventional Lagrangian methods is the handling of mesh-distortions when
considering large deformations. The presented investigations are focused on ALE methods in comparison with state-
of-the-art Updated Lagrangian (UL) methods and experimental results.

A major drawback of conventional Lagrangian methods used for large deformations is the so called re-meshing
methodology needed to cope with the mesh distortion. One can estimate roughly the same amount of time for re-
meshing as for the FEM calculations in between. Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) methods combine the surface
tracking capabilities of the Lagrangian methods with a solution mapping from the deformed (Lagrangian) to the un-
deformed (Eulerian) mesh (see [[2], [3]]). It is therefore possible to prescribe an average movement for the mesh
helping to minimize the re-mapping from the deformed to the un-deformed mesh (see Aymone et. al. [[3]]). Another
advantage of this approach is that material re-joining inside the welding chamber is treated directly (due to the
nature of ALE) while self-contact remains an open issue and was handled manually in the UL case in DEFORM™.

Proceedings of the 20th International ESAFORM Conference on Material Forming

AIP Conf. Proc. 1896, 140006-1–140006-6; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5008162
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1580-5/$30.00

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 NUMERICAL METHODS
The main difference of ALE to Lagrangian methods is the independent movement of material and mesh [2].
Material motion in ALE is described as in Lagrangian methods as ࢞ ൌ ࣘሺࢄǡ ‫ݐ‬ሻ with X representing the material
(Lagrangian) coordinates. The function ࣘሺࢄǡ ‫ݐ‬ሻ maps the body from the initial configuration ȳ଴ to the current
spatial configuration ȳ. This often called “material motion” is identical to the mapping used to describe the motion
of Lagrangian (material) elements [2]. Another reference domain ȳ ෡ , called the referential or ALE domain is
considered in ALE formulations where the initial values of the position of particles are denoted by ࣑ ൌ ࣘሺࢄǡ Ͳሻ. ࣑
are called the referential or ALE coordinates [2]. The choice of ࣘሺࢄǡ Ͳሻ ൌ ࢄ and therefore ࣑ሺࢄǡ Ͳሻ ൌ ࢄ still
includes a purely Lagrangian approach. The referential domain ȳ ෡ , however, may be chosen with high flexibility, in
particular, it can be used to describe the motion of the mesh independently of the motion of the material. In many
implementations, ȳ ෡ is represented by the initial mesh and remains coincident with the mesh throughout the
computation. The motion of the mesh is described by ࢞ ൌ ࣘ ෡ ሺ࣑ǡ ‫ݐ‬ሻ.

FIGURE 1. Mapping between Lagrangian (Material), Eulerian (Spatial) and Reference (ALE) domains.
This map ࣘ ෡ plays a vital role in the ALE finite element formulation. Points ࣑, in the ALE reference domain ȳ
෡,
are mapped to points x in the spatial domain ȳ, via this map (see FIGURE 1). The material motion can be
expressed as a composition of the mesh motion and the map߰ with ߰ ൌ ߶෠ ିଵ ‫߶ ל‬.

The ALE flavor used to generate the results presented in this paper is called Multi Material Arbitrary Lagrangian
Eulerian (MMALE) method. This is a type of ALE method implemented in LS-DYNA® of LSTC®. The major
difference to “conventional” ALE methods is the possibility to use several materials inside one Eulerian element.
The simplest form of multiple materials used in this work is to consider the workpiece material (EN AW-6082) and
a “void” material. The initial Eulerian background mesh is filled with the workpiece material surrounded by “void”.
The tools are modeled as Lagrangian rigid shell parts contacting the workpiece material. The procedure works in the
following way:
x A Lagrangian mesh is created from the filled parts of the Eulerian elements.
x Standard contact algorithms (penalty contact) are used to deform the Lagrangian workpiece in contact
with the Lagrangian tool parts.
x During the Lagrangian sequence, the Eulerian background mesh moves (and/or changes shape) with the
Lagrangian workpiece.
x When mesh distortion is high, the Lagrangian mesh is mapped (by definition of a filling degree) onto
the Eulerian mesh during a so called “advection step”.
x A new (smooth) Lagrangian mesh is again created from the filled parts of the Eulerian elements.
x The Lagrangian deformation step can start again.

Using the ALE methodology it is possible to model the whole extrusion process from the billet upsetting until the
“steady state” extrusion.

MODEL SETUP
The geometry considered in this paper is a tube profile. Due to the necessity of splitting the material in order to
obtain a hollow profile, the die geometry is not axi-symmetric. Thus, a half model of the whole setup was created

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and used in both UL and ALE methods. In DEFORM™, the process was split into two parts. For the transient part
(from billet upsetting until the material breakthrough) the process was modeled using a Lagrangian formulation. For
the “steady state” part of the extrusion process, a simple ALE method was used after the material breakthrough.
ALE in DEFORM 3D™ is implemented such that the mesh made of tetrahedrals remains static except that the free
surface (extruded profile material outside of the die) can distort to a limited extent. Thus it was possible to reduce
the calculation. Model setup of the UL method (implemented in DEFORM™) and MMALE, implemented in LS-
DYNA®) are illustrated in FIGURE 2 (a, b).

(a)

(b)

FIGURE 2. Comparison of the model setup for Updated Lagrangian (UL) method in DEFORM™ (a) and Arbitrary Lagrangian
Eulerian (MMALE) method in LS-DYNA® (b).
Tools (Ram, Container, Die) in DEFORM™ are modeled as rigid solids in thermo-mechanical contact with the
Billet material meshed by solid 100588 tetrahedrals. In MMALE, on the other hand, tools (Ram, Container, Die) are
modeled by rigid Lagrangian shell parts discretized by 14876 quads while an Eulerian background mesh (145000
hexahedrals) is filled with Billet (EN AW-6082) and “void” material. In DEFORM™, the Ram is moved against the
billet to force the material through the die. In LS-DYNA® the ram is fixed and all other parts are moved against the
ram. The advantage of the moving tools is that main parts of the filled Eulerian elements simply move with the
background mesh while only for few elements at the material front, a free surface has to be determined.
As already mentioned before, EN AW-6082 aluminum alloy behavior is defined by flow curves (flow stress over
plastic strain depending on temperature and strain rate) in rigid plastic (DEFORM™) and elasto-plastic (LS-
DYNA®) material models. The reason for using different material models is that elasto-plastic material model in
DEFORM™ show a bad convergence behavior while there is no rigid-plastic material model in LS-DYNA® where
flow curves dependent on temperature, strain and strain rate can be directly given. Due to the high temperatures
there is only minor influence of the elastic part expected.
Penalty contact formulation is applied in both cases using a “hybrid friction” model in DEFORM™ (a
combination of Coulomb and shear friction model with μ=0.376 and m=1) and due to the lack of other possibilities,
a simple Coulomb friction model (μ=0.25) in LS-DYNA®. Thermal contact between Billet and tools as well as
heating due to deformation is considered in the thermal part of both simulations. A summary of the material
properties can be found in TABLE 2 and process parameters are summarized in TABLE 1.

TABLE 1. Summary of material properties used in UL and MMALE simulations.

Part Material Thermal Conductivity Heat Capacity Density Youngs Modulus
Billet EN AW-6082 180.2 [Wm-1K-1] 901 [Jkg-1K-1] 2700 [kgm-3] 6.895e10 [Nm-2]
Tools W300 29 [Wm-1K-1] 549 [Jkg-1K-1] 7830 [kgm-3] 2.070e11 [Nm-2]
TABLE 2. Process parameters and billet dimensions.
Initial Billet Initial Tool Heat Transfer Container Billet
Ram speed Billet length
Temperature e Temperature Coefficient Billet/Tool Diameter diameter
-1 -2 -1
460 [°C] 460 [°C] 0.5 [mms ] 11000 [Wm K ] 50 [mm] 48.5 [mm] 180 [mm]

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 RESULTS
In the following section, results from UL simulations in DEFORM™ are compared with results from MMALE
in LS-DYNA® at 28.5 mm ram stroke. The plastic strain results shown in FIGURE 3 illustrate a major difference
between UL and MMALE. Where UL shows almost no plastic strain at the container walls (FIGURE 3 (a)),
MMALE gives high strain in a narrow band near all of the walls (FIGURE 3 (b)). Inside the final profile geometry,
however, similar plastic strain values between 4.0 and 5.0 can be found in both cases (FIGURE 3 (a) and (b) near
the die exit). Generally, a much higher resolution of the strain distribution could be observed in MMALE results
(FIGURE 3 (b)).

(a)

(b)

FIGURE 3. Comparison of the plastic strain results for the Updated Lagrangian (UL) model in DEFORM™ (a) and the
Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (MMALE) model in LS-DYNA® (b).
High strain values near the walls in MMALE could be due to sticking behavior. Frictional stress can exceed the
local flow stress when very high pressure (see FIGURE 4) causes high normal stress in the Coulomb friction model.

FIGURE 4. Pressure distribution inside the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (MMALE) model in LS-DYNA®.
The Coulomb friction model establishes a simple correlation between pressure p and frictional stress ߬ using the
friction coefficient μ, by ߬ ൌ Ɋ‫݌‬. This means that high interface pressure can lead to shear stresses above the
material flow stress causing sticking behavior. Pressure values of 6.0e8 to 1.0e9 Pa (see FIGURE 4) would cause
frictional stresses of 1.5e7 to 2.5e7 Pa which is almost one order of magnitude above the flow stress for
approximately 460 °C and low strain rate and strain of approx. 5e6 Pa. This means that material near the walls will
stick to the walls, leading to high shear stresses inside the layer where the material starts to move with the main
flow. When frictional stresses are below the local flow stress, the material flows along the walls without increase of
plastic strain. Using a hybrid friction model, the flow stress (m=1) is the limit for the frictional stresses meaning that
almost no plastic strain can be induced.
FIGURE 5 shows that shear stresses are near the average flow stress for average temperature, strain and strain
rate of approx. 5e6 Pa when using hybrid friction in the UL formulation. For the Coulomb friction model, however,
shear stress levels near the walls reach much above the material flow stress thus leading to an accumulation of
plastic strain and therefore higher local flow stresses.

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 (a)

(b)

FIGURE 5. Comparison of max. shear stress results for the Updated Lagrangian (UL) model in DEFORM™ (a) and the
Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (MMALE) model in LS-DYNA® (b).
In addition to the increased plastic strain, the billet temperature maintains low values in MMALE compared to
UL results (compare FIGURE 3 (b) and FIGURE 6 (b)). This in turn causes increased flow stresses compared to
UL. Inside the die, for example, UL gives temperatures of 467 to 469 °C while the values in MMALE are 5 °C
lower except for areas with high plastic strain (compare FIGURE 3 (b) and FIGURE 6 (b)).

(a)

(b)

FIGURE 6. Comparison of the temperature results for the Updated Lagrangian (UL) model in DEFORM™ (a) and the Arbitrary
Lagrangian Eulerian (MMALE) model in LS-DYNA® (b).

FIGURE 7 (a) shows a comparison of results for the ram force over ram stroke for both transient UL and
MMALE simulations from the billet compaction until the “steady state” extrusion.
As can be seen from FIGURE 7 (a), results from the UL formulation show a good agreement with experimental
ram force results. After material break through (from 28 mm stroke onwards in FIGURE 7 (b)), the ALE
formulation in DEFORM™ cannot exactly reproduce the decrease in ram force due to a reduced billet surface. One
possibility to model such behavior would be to use a moving friction window mimicking the reduction in billet
length and thus the decrease in the production of friction energy. Ram force results for MMALE formulation give 37
% higher values in comparison to UL results (compare FIGURE 7 (a) and (b)). The evolution of the force curve,
however, resembles the experimental curve.
Temperature results from both UL and MMALE simulations in comparison with experimental results are given
in FIGURE 7 (b). The temperature measurements in experiments and simulations were recorded inside the die wall
near the profile exit (see FIGURE 2 (a, b)). Although maximum die temperature values for UL and MMALE
models are only 4 °C below the experimental results at the beginning (see FIGURE 7 (b)), the simulation shows
almost no heating due to deformation or friction. The deviation of the die temperature from simulation compared to
the experimental results reflects the deviations in the force values. If the simulated temperature is higher, the ram
force is lower due to the dependence of the flow stress on the temperature and vice versa.

140006-5
 (a) (b)
FIGURE 7. Ram force (a) and billet/die temperature (b): Comparison of results from the Updated Lagrange (UL) model and the
Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) model with experimental data.

One of the reasons could be frictional heating. In metal extrusion, friction conditions are complex and vary
between different areas of the tools [5]. Since only Coulomb friction is available for MMALE in LS-DYNA®
whereas a hybrid friction (a combination of shear with a Coulomb friction model is used in DEFORM™) certain
differences had to be expected. The reason for the investigation of alternative methods to UL was the hope to find a
more efficient method for simulating bulk forming processes. At this stage, this could only be partly fulfilled with
428 h, on 2 cores in UL, and 509 h on 16 cores in MMALE. Due to the separation in transient and steady state part
in UL method, the results are, however, limited. Thus a certain gain in overall calculation time could be achieved by
using MMALE.

CONCLUSION
MMALE shows great potentials for applications in metal forming, however, improvements are still necessary.
Frictional heating and more realistic friction conditions should help to better encompass the experimentally observed
temperature increase, which will result in a decrease of the ram force in MMALE. One of the major advantages of
MMALE in comparison to UL concerns self-contact in the welding chamber. In Updated Lagrangian formulations,
joining contacting material fronts is still an open issue while in Eulerian codes and thus in ALE, joining happens by
simple filling of Eulerian elements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the Federal Ministry for
Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) and the State of Upper Austria for sponsoring this research work in
the framework of COMET.

REFERENCES
[1] Kobayashi, S. et. al., 1989, Metal Forming and the Finite-Element Method. Oxford University Press.
[2] Belytschko, T., et. al., 2014. Nonlinear Finite Elements for Continua and Structures. Wiley , pp. 417-420.
[3] Aymone, J., et. al., 2001. Simulation of 3D metal-forming using an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian finite element
method. JMPT, 110(2), pp. 218-232.
[4] Belytschko, T., et. al., 1996. Meshless methods: An overview and recent developments. JCMAME.
[5] Zhou, J., et. al., 2003. 3D FEM simulation of the whole cycle of aluminium extrusion throughout the transient
state and the steady state using the updated Lagrangian approach. JMPT, 134(3), pp. 383-397.

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