Abstract: In order to eliminate forging defects appearing in production, based on the rigid-viscoplastic FEM principle, the DEFORM3D software package was employed to simulate the forming process of TC4 alloy mounting part and to optimize the process parameters. In this simulation, the temperature dependency of the thermal and mechanical properties of material was considered. Based on the simulation, the metal flow and thermomechanical field variables such as stress and damage are obtained. The simulation results show that the forging defects are caused by improper die dimension and the optimized die dimension was proposed. To verify the validity of simulation results, forging experiments were also carried out in a forging plant. The forging experiments show that the optimized die dimension can ensure the quality of forging part, and it can provide reference to improve and optimize die design process.

Key words: TC4 alloy; forging defect; rigid-viscoplastic FEM; numerical simulation