Prediction of die wear in the wire-drawing process

In cold-forming processes, failure must be considered before die design, because high working pressure acts on the die surface. One of the main reasons for die failure in industrial application of metal-forming technologies is wear. Die wear affects the tolerances of formed parts, metal flow and costs of processes, etc. The only way to control these failures is to develop methods which allow the prediction of the die wear and which are suited to being used in the design stage in order to optimize the process. In this paper, the wire-drawing process is simulated by the rigid-plastic finite-element method and the results used for predicting the die wear by abrasive-wear theory. The effects of the temperature rise on the wear profiles of the dies are investigated. The simulation results are compared with measured die profiles. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.