Overcoming Limits - Die Forging of Cast Preforms

Casting and forging are among the technologies with the highest material and energy requirements. Many efforts have been made to minimise the expenditures involved, but in most cases they have been limited to the individual application case. While the combination of casting and forming processes has been described and applied extensively for aluminium components, this approach has been far less investigated and advanced for steel components. The latest developments in the software with a direct interface between casting and forming simulation enabled the creation of a continuous simulation from the casting to the finished forged part. The match between the simulation and the real component was verified on the basis of manufactured sample parts. Currently ongoing investigations focus on the formation of the microstructure in the component. At the same time, the process chain casting - forging is being developed and evaluated for a further component. This approach overcomes existing limits and opens up new possibilities for component design by linking simulations of casting and forging.