Master of Philosophy Course in Materials Modelling

Aeroengine disc forging - Microstructural Modelling

Teamwork Project

Academic Staff in charge: S. Tin

Demonstrator: S. Tin, R. Guest

Project Description: Aeroengine disc forging - Microstructural Modelling

Firth Rixson Forgings Ltd is one of the UK´s leading producers of closed die forgings in steel, nickel and titanium alloys. It specialises in the manufacture of components for aerospace, automotive engineering and many other advanced engineering industries. A comprehensive range of closed die forging equipment including crank presses from 1000 tonnes to 3000 tonnes and screw presses from 900 to 11000 tonnes exist at their Darley Dale site.

In this project you will be modelling the forging of Firth Rixson’s Waspaloy superalloy aeroengine discs as supplied to Rolls-Royce. The modelling will be performed in the DEFORM, and ABAQUS finite element codes. This will involve

• Generation of the die and preform geometries in the finite element package.
• Coding of the relevant constitutive behaviour law.
• Coding of the microstructure laws as derived from previous compression tests.

Currently the forge modelling performed at Firth Rixson relies on the modeller and metallurgists’ experience to relate the forging condition (strain, strain-rate and temperature) to the microstructure obtained.

The models developed will enable the achievement of an optimal microstructure with the minimum amount of testing. A comparison will be made between the abilities of the three codes to model the same forging. The model results will be validated against microstructural data from real disc components.