Numerical study on the effect of the thermo‐mechanical properties of alloys on the behaviour of super plastic forming tools

The paper describes a numerical study to investigate the effect of the thermo‐mechanical properties of heat resisting nickel and chromium alloys, used for super plastic forming (SPF) tools, on the tool service behaviour. The purpose of the paper is to rank the relative importance of each property studied for the heat resisting class of cast nickel and chromium alloys, subjected to repeated thermal cycles under typical industrial super plastic forming conditions. A finite element model of a tool block within an industrial press furnace was developed to simulate the typical thermal cycles of an super plastic forming tool, and predict the resulting mechanical performance. Important thermal and mechanical properties were identified for the cast nickel and chromium class of alloys studied in this paper and suitable ranges for the properties were determined for numerical simulations. The results include a quantitative analysis of the effect of the properties studied.