Author’s Accepted Manuscript www. elsevier.

Numerical analysis of die wear characteristics in hot

forging of titanium alloy turbine blade

Shiyuan Luo, Dahu Zhu, Lin Hua, Dongsheng Qian,

Sijie Yan

conflocate/ijmecsci
PII: S0020-7403(16)30490-8
DOI: http ://dx.doi. org/ 10.1016/j. ijmecsci.2017.02.013
Reference: MS3598

To appear in: International Journal of Mechanical Sciences

Received date: 14 October 2016 Revised date: 10 F ebruary 2017

Accepted date: 17 F ebruary 2017

Cite this article as: Shiyuan Luo, Dahu Zhu, Lin Hua, Dongsheng Qian and Siji Yan,
Numerical analysis of die wear characteristics in hot forging of titanium alloy turbine
blade, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences http ://dx. doi. org/ 10.1016/j.
ijmecsci.2017.02.013

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2. Wear modeling

The Archard wear model is widely used to analyze wear behavior of dies, as shown below [10]:

LP (
H where W denotes the wear depth, K means the wear coefficient, H is the die hardness, L the
i
relatively sliding distance and P the contact pressure between workpiece and die. )

Owing to the fact that K and H are temperature-dependent, the above model considering these two

parameters as constants related to materials is unreasonable and will bring certain errors in hot forging

operations. Therefore, Lee and Jou [18] proposed a modified wear model, where K and H are regarded

as the functions of temperature. It can be expressed as:

Tp
W (T) = K (T) — (2)
H(T) ()

where the temperature-dependent wear coefficient K(T) and die hardness H(T) can be obtained by Eqs.

(3) and (4), respectively.

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Fig. 1 presents the part and forging drawings of a 1220 mm-long turbine blade. Considering the
(
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convenience of the mold release and efficiency of the subsequent machining, machining allowances )at

the areas of the tenon, blade body and tip shroud are 5 mm, 1.5 mm and 5 mm, respectively. Fig. 2(a)

shows a 3D schematic diagram of the blade forging operation. Owing to the fact that the machining

allowances at the area of the blade body are much smaller than those at areas of the tip shroud and

tenon, the die wear behavior of the blade body part is considered to have important influences on the

service life of dies and accuracy of the forged blade. In order to investigate the wear depth distribution

and evolution of this part, Fig. 2(b) presents a local 3D geometric model which can simplify the FE

directly.
Fig.1. Part and forging drawings of a 1220 mm-long turbine blade.

model, improve the simulation efficiency and display the die wear depth distribution and evolution

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C = 2.36 + 3 xlQ- X T+2 xlQ" 6
xT

(
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(
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Finally, substituting Eqs. (21) and (22) into Eq. (14), the equation can be rewritten as:

(
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)

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Fig. 6. Then, the experimental procedure is numerically modeled and the comparison between the

experimental and numerical results shows a good agreement. Thus, the local forging method can well

represent the mechanical behavior of blade forging operation, and the 3D FE model proposed in the

present work can model the die wear behavior well.

Fig.6. A local forging method with the equipment (a), forging dies (b) and the forged blade (c) [44].

4. Results and discussion

4.1 Die wear evolution and distribution

Fig. 7 shows the predicted wear depth distribution of the upper die with different percentages of

forging strokes. It is observed that the worn region shows a positive correlation with the forging strokes,

which is mainly contributed to the enlargement of the contact area between the workpiece and die

surface. Moreover, as shown in Fig. 7(d), the wear depth distribution is uneven and significant at the

end of the forging operation. There are two approximately symmetrical maximum worn regions located

on both sides of the middle die cavity surface where the minimum wear occurs. This is mainly because

the blade deformation is inhomogeneous (Fig. 8), thereby resulting in non-uniform distribution of the

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relative sliding velocity at the die-workpiece interface. The higher metal How resistance in hard

deformation zone decreases the sliding velocity which leads to a lower value of wear depth on the

middle of the cavity surface. This view can be supported by the recent investigation of Gronostajski et

al. [45] which also found the die wear depth is low at the zone where the workpiece deformation is

difficult in the gear wheel forging process. Furthermore, as shown in Fig. 8, the blade forming feature is

in quite agreement with the analytical work conducted by Aksenov et al. [22] who employed the
slip-line field theory to analyze the plastically deformation area of the blade.

Fig.7. Wear depth distribution of the upper die with different percentages of forging strokes.

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Fig.8. Effective plastic strain distribution of the blade with different percentages of forging strokes.

Fig. 9 shows the predicted wear depth distribution of the lower die with different percentages of

forging strokes. Like the upper die, the wear depth distribution is inhomogeneous and the minimum

worn region is located on the same place of the cavity surface. However, different from Fig. 7(d), only

one maximum worn region is found on the cavity surface of the lower die af t er the forging operation, as

shown in Fig. 9(d). This phenomenon can be also related to the non-uniform plastic deformation of the

blade. From the partial forged blade contacted with the lower die (Fig. 8(e)), it can be found that the

deformation in the region near blade trailing edge is more intensive than the region near blade leading

edge. This deformation feature brings a bigger sliding velocity distribution near blade trailing edge,

further resulting in a more severe worn zone there.

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Fig.10. Die wear depth distributions of the tenon (a) and tip shroud (b) parts.
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values of measured points after the forging operation are presented in Fig. 11(b). The wear volume of
upper die is found to be generally greater than that of lower die and the peak values of wear depth (about
12e-5 mm) are located at points 12 and 34, respectively. Moreover, between these two points, the values
of wear depth gradually decrease from the peak values at both ends to the valley value (0.42e-5 mm) at
point 25. This phenomenon can be explained by the same reason as mentioned above.

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From points 12 to 1 and points 34 to 50, the wear depth values also show decreasing trends which can be

attributed to the decrement of the contact time and pressure. This view is supported by Akgerman et al.

[23] who found that in the blade forging operation, the forging stresses increase sharply from the flash

lands at both ends to the neutral surface near the middle of dies by using the slab method. Furthermore,

Fig. 11(c) shows the maximum wear depth evolutions of dies during the forging process. It can be found

that a steep increase in maximum wear depth is generated when the forging process enters the final

stage. This finding is mainly caused by a sharp increment of the forging load at final forging stage which

has been reported by Luo et al. [2].

Fig.11. Locations of the measured points (a), wear depth values of the measured points after the forging

operation (b) and maximum wear depth evolutions of the dies during the forging process (c).

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4.2 Effect of the initial workpiece temperature and preheated die temperature

4.2.1 Simulation conditions

As described above, the upper and lower dies show the similar wear variation laws. The wear

volume of the former, however, is slightly greater than the latter. Hence, the upper die is chosen as a

representative of the analytical object to investigate the effects of initial workpiece temperature T w and

preheated die temperature Td on the die wear behavior. The simulation conditions characterized by a

range of values of Tw={800, 830, 860, 890, 920, 950, 980} [°C] and Td={100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350,

400} [°C] are selected, and the other parameters remain unchanged as listed in Table 2.

4.2.2 Effect of the initial workpiece temperature

Fig. 12(a) shows the wear depth variations of measured points versus the initial workpiece

temperature Tw in 3D surface form. It can be seen that the wear depth decreases as increasing the T w.

Moreover, Fig. 12(b) shows a contour plot with some fundamental evolution laws of the die wear depth.

It can be found that the maximum wear depth (about 27e-5 mm) at T w = 815 °C is approximately 3 times

larger than that at Tw = 965 °C. This is mainly because enhancing the T w sharply reduces the flow stress

of Ti-6Al-4V, which leads to the decrement of the contact pressure between the workpiece and dies. Eq.

(6) can well explain this finding that the wear depth value is proportional to the pressure and reduced

with the decrement of the die surface pressure. Furthermore, the evolution laws of measured points 12,

25 and 34 are compared as shown in Fig. 12(b). It is clearly evident that the wear depth values at

measured points 12 and 34 increase almost linearly with decreasing the T w. However, the value remains

nearly unchanged at measured point 25. The reason for this is that the metal flow in hard deformation

zone is difficult to be improved by enhancing the T w during the blade forging operation. Therefore, the

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relative sliding velocity becomes the decisive factor to influence the die wear depth in

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this zone. This explanation is supported by Semiatin and Lahoti [46] who carefully investigated the

effect of initial workpiece temperature on the uniformity characteristics of titanium alloy forgings.

Therefore, through the above analysis, the value of the maximum wear depth can be decreased by the

approach of enhancing the Tw. In contrast, the value reduction of the minimum wear depth is

(a)
(b)

Fig.12. 3D surface plot of the wear depth showing the effect of initial workpiece temperature Tw (a)

and the contour plot with some fundamental evolution laws of the wear depth (b).

independent of the Tw in the blade forging process.

4.2.3 Effect of the preheated die temperature

Fig. 13(a) shows the wear depth variations of measured points versus the preheated die temperature

Td in 3D surface form. Unlike the Tw, the Td shows an opposite influence on the wear depth. From Fig.

13(b), it can be seen that there is an increase of nearly 250% in the maximum value of the wear depth

when Td rises from 125 °C to 375 °C. This is mainly attributed to the changes of the wear coefficient and

die hardness caused by the Td variation. As shown in Eqs. (3) and (4), the temperature-dependent wear

coefficient K(T) and die hardness H(T) are in direct and in inverse proportional to the die temperature,

respectively. And from Eq. (6), it can be found that either increasing the wear coefficient or decreasing

the die hardness will lead to the value increment of the

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980 (400) 830(150)

860 (200)

Finally, after being convinced by the local 3D FE approach that the determined combination of

thermal parameters serves to reduce the die wear volume, an entire 3D FE simulation under the thermal

parameters {Tw=950 °C, Td=200 °C} is conducted. Fig. 15(a) and (b) show the wear depth distributions

of the whole upper and lower dies, respectively. Compared with the simulated results shown in Figs. 7,

9, 10 and 15, the similarity of die wear depth distributions between the local and entire 3D FE simulated

results is clearly apparent. Moreover, owing to the inhomogeneous deformation of the blade, the wear

depth distributions of whole blade forging dies are extremely non-uniform. Hence, in order to improve

the uniformity of the die wear depth, the shape design and optimization of the preformed billet will be

carried out in the future work.

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Fig.15. Wear depth distributions of whole upper (a) and lower (b) dies.
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5. Conclusions

This paper utilizes FE methods to reveal die wear characteristics in a complicated hot forging

process of the Ti-6Al-4V turbine blade body. Furthermore, the influence of initial workpiece

temperature and preheated die temperature on the die wear evolution and distribution is investigated

detailedly. Following conclusions are achieved:

(1) The wear behavior of the upper and lower dies is evolved from the starting contact surface to the

both sides, and the wear distributions are found to be extremely non-uniform. Unlike the lower die

where only one peak wear value appears, two peak wear values are observed on both sides of the

middle surface of the upper die cavity where the valley wear value exists. Moreover, the
non-uniform distribution of the relative sliding velocity at the die-workpiece interface causing by

the inhomogeneous plastic deformation of the workpiece results in the slightly greater wear

volume of the upper die than the lower die.

(2) The initial workpiece temperature Tw is found to be negatively correlated with the die wear depth,

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(3) while the preheated die temperature Td shows the positive correlation. For the
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former, the higher Tw reduces the flow stress sharply, leading to the decrease of the
contact pressure at workpiece-dies interface. For the latter, the lower T d changes
the wear coefficient K(T) and die hardness H(T), greatly contributing to the wear
decrease of the SKD61 forging die and accuracy
improvement of the Ti-6Al-4V forged blade.

(4) The die wear depth is more significantly influenced by the Td than the Tw, and the maximum wear

depth value by the lower Td is found to be nearly half of the value by the higher Tw. The

combination of higher Tw and lower Td can be taken as a means to reduce the die wear depth. In

addition, a reasonable combination of process parameters {T w=920-980 °C, Td=100-300 °C} are

determined to improve die service life.

(5) The simulated die wear results which clarify the relationship with the metal flow of the workpiece

and the thermal effects can provide a significant basis for the shape design and optimization of the

preformed billet and forging dies, further enhance the working life of dies in hot forging of turbine

blades.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Nature

Science Foundation of China (nos. 51675394, 51375196), the State Key Laboratory of Digital

Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (no. DMETKF2016003), and the Key R & D Program of

Jiangsu Province (no. BE2015005).

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Highlights

• A local 3D FE approach embedded with the modified Archard wear model is

developed.
• The wear characteristics of dies in hot blade forging are numerically investigated.
• The thermal effects of the workpiece and dies on the die wear depth are assessed.
• The strategies for decreasing the die wear volume are suggested.

Graphical Abstract

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