Numerical Investigation on the Strain Evolution of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy during Multi-directional Forging at Elevated Temperatures

Multi-directional forging (MDF) is one of the most promising severe plastic deformation (SPD) methods used in fabricating large-scale bulk metal materials with ultra-fine grains (UFG). A finite element model for MDF is developed to investigate the strain evolution of Ti-6Al-4V alloy subjected to MDF. Results show that the billet subjected to MDF can be divided into four individual strain zones in terms of the equivalence of effective strain evolution, and that the strain increment in each individual strain zone varies from pass to pass. The deviation between the maximum and the minimum strain increases with the increase of passes and friction coefficient. The effective strain linearly decreases from the core to the exterior of the billet in all three directions after the MDF process. With the increase of the passes and friction coefficient, the gradient of the effective strain in the billet increases in all three directions due to the difference of deformability in different individual strain zones. For the definite friction coefficient, the average and maximum effective strains are in proportion to the accumulative compression strain.