A Digital Twin Approach to Automotive Wheel Flow Forming Process

The high dynamicity of today’s mass production and product customization, led to the last industrial revolution, known as Industry4.0, characterized by a strict interconnection between physical and digital domain. Amongst the Industry4.0 enabling technologies, simulations are employed for the development of Digital Twins able to assess the behavior of process systems during the time. Concerning this, the tailoring of manufacturing simulative models is mandatory for the subsequent Digital Twin and Industry4.0 integration, along the final product value chain. Aim of this paper is the development of an automotive wheel flow forming process finite element simulation representing the first step in a Digital Twin approach. Flow forming is a deformation technique elongates the material of axisymmetric objects in axial direction, and reduces the width in the radial one, employed for tubes, wheels, and axisymmetric components production. The deformation is realized by compressing preformed parts on rotatingmandrels using two or three rollers. The presented model was validated by digitally reproducing the flow forming process, employing the experimental process parameters, and comparing then the simulated 2D cross-section and 3D shape, with the nominal 2D CAD data and experimental acquired 3D geometry respectively. Comparison results showthe capability of the model to correctly predict the final geometry, furnishing, firstly, a predictive tool to avoid the need of a high number of costly and time-consuming experimental tests, during the process parameters setup phase, and secondly laying the foundations of a further Digital Twin creation.