Radial basis functional model for multi-objective sheet metal forming optimization

Abstract

Fracture and wrinkling are two major defects in sheet metal forming and can be eliminated via an appropriate drawbead design. This article proposes to adopt a multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) approach, which differs from traditional multi-objective optimization with construction of a single cost function. MOPSO shows a certain advantage over other single cost function or population-based algorithms. While radial basis function (RBF) has shown considerable promise in highly non-linear problems, there has been no report in sheet metal forming design. Here RBF is attempted to establish the metamodels for fracture and wrinkling criteria in sheet metal forming design. In this article, a sophisticated automobile inner stamping case is exemplified, which demonstrated that RBF provides a better surrogate accuracy and MOPSO is more effective than the other methods studied. The use of RBF driven MOPSO procedure significantly improved the formability and can be recommended for sheet metal process design.

Keywords:

• sheet metal forming
• radial basis function (RBF)
• multi-objective optimization
• drawbead design
• finite element analysis
• response surface method (RSM)

Acknowledgements

The support from The National 973 Project of China (2010CB328005), The Outstanding Youth Foundation of NSFC (50625519), The Key Project of National Science Foundation of China (60635020), the open found in the Human Provincial Key Laboratory of Health Maintenance for Mechanical Equipment (200905), the open fund in the State Key Laboratory of Vehicle NVH and Safety Technology (NVHSKL-201002). The Program for Changjiang Scholar and Innovative Research Team in Chinese University are acknowledged. The first author is also grateful for the supports from China Scholarship Council (CSC) and School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney.