Software for the tool design and simulation of the wire rolling process

At wire 2006 in Düsseldorf data M Software GmbH will be presenting a computer program for the engineering of wire rolling tool sets: COPRA® WR (Wire Rolling) and COPRA® FEA WR.

The software supports the effective design of wire rolling tools and the finite element simulation of the complete wire rolling process.
The starting product for shaped wire is very often round or rectangular wire. Proceeding from this geometry, the wire is turned into the required final form by means of a number of rolling passes. So only the starting and final state of the wire is known. As shaped wires very often have geometries with different radii, the definition of respective intermediate stages is a complex matter. 
In addition to the purely geometric aspect, there are some other factors that play a nevertheless important role. These include the fact that the material lengthens when it is formed, and can be very difficult to force into the border regions. Large deformations produce local strain hardening, as a result of which the material can become brittle and thus fissured.

The COPRA® WR Wire Rolling solution for wire rolling supports the tool engineer with some important features:

• One is the interactive modeling of the forming steps - based on experience which is already available: the software calculates and sketches the subsequent forming steps while the designer is able to put respective cross sectional areas into any wanted percentage ratio.

• COPRA® WR automatically designs the different cross sections of each shaping step. The user just defines the start and end cross-section. He can also specify the degree of forming and the estimated amount of reduction of any cross-section.

• The final but not least important step in the COPRA® WR process chain is the verification of the design by finite element simulation. Forming is computed based on roller geometry and the starting cross-section.

• COPRA® FEA WR simulates the wire rolling process by means of the non linear elasto-plastic solver MSC.MARC and provides the user with important information about the final wire shape to be expected. The software allows the prediction of the material properties and thus an optimization of the wire rolling process with regard to its final properties.

picture 1: COPRA® FEA WR allows the simulation of the wire rolling process 
For download (1MB)