Influence of the Coupling Strategy in the Numerical Simulation of Electromagnetic Sheet Metal Forming

In this paper the Electromagnetic Forming process is numerically analyzed using a novel method that is being implemented into the commercial LS-DYNA® code. The method consists on a combination of a Boundary Element Method (BEM) and a Finite Element Method (FEM) formulations to compute the electromagnetic analysis. The main advantage of using BEM is that the air is not meshed avoiding the related problems and making it easier to couple the interacting fields involved in the EMF process. Sequential coupling and uncoupled strategies for the simulation of the related fields (i.e. electromagnetic, thermal and mechanical fields) are compared. Sequential coupling takes into account the deformation of the work piece are compared with the uncoupled strategy dismisses the deformation of the sample. The importance of the simulation method used is evaluated and compared with experimental results.