A Multi-scale Simulation of Micro-forming Process with RKEM.

Micro-forming using meso-scale press has the potential of bringing up an entire new concept of manufacturing. Compared to macro-forming process, individual microstructure (i.e., the size, shapes and arrangement of grains) plays an even more critical role in deformation, process variation, interfacial behavior and wear in the micro-forming process. In this paper, reproducing kernel element method (RKEM) is employed to simulate the micro-forming process. As a meshfree method, RKEM can handle large deformation of material in the micro-forming process. The efficiency of RKEM can be improved with using the stabilized conforming nodal integration. Due to the natural conforming of approximation and no requirement of compatible mesh in RKEM, it is easy to remesh the model when moving interfacing (grain boundary) is considered. As the first step of a series investigation, the resulting force of deforming a pin in a micro-forming process is calculated with RKEM and is compared to the experimental result. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]