Equivalent heating tool method for numerical simulation for sheet temperature in frictional stir incremental forming

In finite element method (FEM) numerical simulation for frictional stir incremental forming (FSIF), the high-speed rotational motion of the tool will lead to many great steps of simulation resulting in unacceptable simulation time. This paper proposes an equivalent heating tool method for simulation of FSIF, which can significantly reduce simulation time by using non-rotating tool with equivalent temperature instead of rotating tool. Methods of response surface, iterating, and variance analysis were employed to obtain equivalent temperature model with processing parameters as variables. An equivalent temperature model for an AZ31B magnesium alloy was obtained and used to proceed with the numerical simulation of the whole incremental forming process of a truncated pyramid part. A comparison between the experimental and simulation results showed that they were in good agreement in terms of temperature variation trend, temperature fluctuation trend, and temperature value. The results show that the equivalent heating tool method can reasonably predict the process of FSIF with FEM numerical simulation.