A study on life estimation of hot forging die

In this study, the forging die life was investigated using fatigue life and wear quantity, which are generally considered for estimation of die life. The main aim is development of the equations to adapt finite element analysis to life estimation for a hot forging die. The Archard’s model was used to estimate the wear life of the die and Goodman’s and Gerber’s equations, using the stress-life method, were applied to estimation of the fatigue life. These techniques were applied to die life estimation for the hot forging die of a ball joint socket used in an autovehicle system. Rigid-plastic finite element analysis was first carried out for the forging process of the ball joint socket and then the elastic stress analysis was performed for the die in order to obtain fundamental data for the prediction of fatigue life. The die stress analysis requires the deforming loads of the workpiece to be translated into the contact loading of the die. In this case, the size of finite elements of the die and the workpiece is important for good interpolation of the loading. Therefore, the influence of element sizes on the interpolation results of the contact loading was also investigated. The wear volume of the die was measured using a 3-dimensional scanner of probe type. It was found that the measurement had a good agreement with the results of the finite element analysis for the die life estimation.