High-Speed Material Characterization Using an Instrumented Forging Hammer

Abstract

Hammer forging is a widely employed manufacturing process to produce parts with excellent mechanical properties. Although the rheological behavior and the microstructural transformation phenomena of metals under hammer forging conditions are of great industrial interest, few materials have been tested in such intermediate strain rates (10–103 s−1) due to the lack of laboratory machines for intermediate speed testing. With the objective of addressing that gap, this paper presents a novel automatic forging simulator comprising an instrumented forging hammer capable of performing intermediate speed deformations, up to 5 m/s. Three data acquisition approaches were evaluated to select the most appropriate approach and obtain valid rheological data from intermediate strain rate tests performed on the developed hammer. First, the data obtained by both a high-speed camera and a load cell was combined to calculate reference flow curves. Then, two additional data monitoring approaches were then analyzed, employing independently first the high-speed camera and then the load cell data. It was concluded that flow curves obtained utilizing only the load cell data offered accurate results without the need for an expensive and complex high-speed camera.