IndiForm - Eine intuitive Bedienoberfläche für die industrielle Umformsimulation

The paper presents the newly developed intuitive graphical user interface for industrial metal forming simulation, IndiForm. IndiForm is extremely easy to handle and can be used as pre- and post-processor independently of a particular finite element solver. The software enables those who are not finite element experts to carry out multi step forming simulations with complex finite element codes. This is achieved by means of a firm separation of the physical process definition and the numerical input data. Being the most innovative feature, in IndiForm the physical process is defined graphically by means of symbolic representations, i.e. icons, of all tools and blanks involved in the forming process. Thus, multi step forming processes can be „symbolically“ defined by a very intuitive and simple drag-and-drop procedure. For a number of common forming processes pre-defined templates are offered by IndiForm. User- defined forming processes can also easily be stored as templates. The translation of the defined physical forming process into numerical input data is done by IndiForm automatically using appropriate parameter settings. However, simulation experts can always change all parameter settings to their own preferred values and store them as templates. Since the physical process is, of course, independent of the simulation software the decision of which software is to be used can be made when all other work has been completed. Therefore, IndiForm can be used to switch easily between different forming simulation packages, choosing the one most suited to the task in question. The set-up of a forming simulation independently of a particular simulation software is an important step on the way to standardisation of industrial forming simulations.

application/pdf C-III-03.pdf — 1.6 MB