Study on Effect of Single-Tooth Radial Forging Process Parameters on Spline Shaft Forming

Higher requirement of the performance of spline shaft has been put forward with the development of aerospace technology. As a precision advanced manufacturing technology, radial forging technology is suitable for the manufacturing of high-performance spline shaft. Aiming at the influence of process parameters on plastic forming in single-tooth radial forging (STRF) process of spline shaft, the effects of process parameters such as initial forging temperature of the blank, forging speed of the dies, and friction condition on the forming load, and distribution of equivalent stress and equivalent strain of the workpiece were investigated. Firstly, the introduction to STRF process of spline shaft was given. And then a finite element model was established based on the FORGE software, and the range of each process parameter was determined. Through the finite element analysis, the influence laws of various parameters of STRF process on spline shaft forming were obtained. The simulation results show that the forming load and equivalent stress decrease with the increasing of the initial forging temperature of the blank, and increase with the increasing of the forging speed. Within the friction coefficient range, the effect of friction conditions on die load and equivalent stress is not significant. The equivalent strain and the cumulative plastic deformation degree of the material are almost unchanged under different parameter condition. The obtained results in this paper can provide reference for the application and development of advanced manufacturing process of high-performance gear parts used in aerospace.