Blocker design for axisymmetric hot steel forging by expert system and FEM

Abstract

A hot forging of steel usually consists of buster, blocker and finisher processes. The blocker is a transient shape to ease the metal now in the finisher dies and it is designed by experienced engineers with rules. Recently, due to the lack of such engineers, it is necessary to develop an expert system to automate the design operations. In the present study: a rule-based expert system was developed for the blocker design of axisymmetric hot steel forging. In this paper, the major rules used in the system are summarized and the designed blockers were verified by rigid thermoviscoplastic finite element method.