International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering

Abstract

In the present scenario of competitive production, Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) techniques have been applied with great success in metal forming research especially in the cold, warm and hot forging areas for meeting customer expectations. There is growing demand for more efficient and economic manufacturing process to reduce production cost, increase productivity, and reduce lead time and to improve product quality. The traditional forging die design procedure depends upon costly, tedious and time consuming shop floor trials before achieving final acceptable product. More difficulty is experienced when design requirements are stringent and die profiles are complicated. To overcome this problem, computer based simulation technology has come and brought some benefits for optimizing forging processes. In this paper, Taguchi optimization methodology is applied to optimize design parameters for steering knuckle die. Taguchi offers a simple and systematic approach to obtain optimal settings of the design parameters for steering knuckle die. The design parameters evaluated are flash thickness, flash land and billet shape each at three levels. To obtain the results the forging process was modeled (Catia 3D modeling software), simulated (Deform 3D forging simulation software) and examined using Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array.