• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.14 no.6 s.78
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• pp.547-552
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• 2005

In general, the sheet metal and die are described by finite elements for the simulation of the metal forming processes. Because the characteristics as continuum of the sheet metal are represented with triangles and rectangles, the errors occur inevitably in finite element analysis. Many contact schemes to describe the deformation modes exactly have been introduced in order to decrease these errors. In this study, a scheme for continuous contact treatment is proposed in order to consider the realistic behavior of contact phenomena during the forming process. The discrete mesh causes stepwise propagation of contact nodes of the sheet even though the contact region of the real forming process is altered very smoothly. It gives rise to convergence problem in case that the process, for example bending process, is sensitive to the contact between the sheet and the tools. The analysis of the unconstrained cylindrical bending process without blank holder is also presented in order to investigate the effect of the proposed algorithm.