Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211 (2011) 467474

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Flexible forming tool concept for producing crankshafts

L.M. Alves, P.A.F. Martins
IDMEC, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Univ. Tecn. Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Forging, casting and machining compete on quality and price for the production of crankshafts. Forging and casting are commonly utilized for mass production because the capital investment in equipment and tooling are very high. Machining is employed only in case of small production batches of high quality crankshafts made from materials that are normally difcult to forge or cast because it is time and energy intensive, generates a lot of waste and is generally more costly than forging and casting. As a result of this, conventional manufacturing routes for crankshafts are not suitable for exible small to medium-batch production and, therefore, are not appropriate for the growing agile manufacturing trends requiring very short life-cycles and very short development and production lead times. This paper is concerned with these issues and is focused on the development of an innovative forming tool concept for producing small to medium-batches of cost competitive crankshafts. The proposed tool concept combines knowledge on buckling of solid rods under compression with exible construction solutions based on modular dies to allow crankshaft production to change output rapidly. Single cylinder to multi cylinder crankshafts including multiple main bearing journals, crankpins and crank webs can be easily produced by fastening or removing appropriate die modules in the overall tool set. The presentation is illustrated with test cases obtained from nite element modelling and experimentation with a laboratory prototype tool conceived to operate exclusively with lightweight materials exhibiting high ductility in cold forming. 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 12 August 2010 Received in revised form 6 October 2010 Accepted 27 October 2010

Keywords: Crankshafts Flexible forming tool Finite element method Experimentation

1. Introduction Crankshafts are employed to convert circular into reciprocating motion or reciprocating into circular motion. Its application draws from ancient water powered saws, which combined crankshafts with connecting rods for cutting rectangular blocks of stone to modern internal combustion engines where crankshafts are necessary to translate the reciprocating motion of pistons into rotation. Forging, casting and machining are competitive manufacturing processes in crankshaft production industry. Forged crankshafts are shaped in a sequence of stages. Starting with a solid rod, the crosssectional area of the rod is rst altered in shape by roll forging, subsequently formed into the nal shape by close die forging operations and then trimmed. The intermediate stages in forging are necessary for distributing the material and lling the die cavities properly (Thomas, 1986) but trimming can be eliminated by the application of precision forging technology. The work of Behrens et al. (2007) presents a comprehensive investigation on the subject and shows the potential of precision forging technology to reduce material waste and energy consumption and to improve the overall physical and mechanical properties of crankshafts.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 21 8417561; fax: +351 21 8419058. E-mail address: pmartins@ist.utl.pt (P.A.F. Martins). 0924-0136/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2010.10.024

Casted crankshafts are less expensive than forged because they can be made close to the required shape and size in a single operation. They are favoured for low cost production of engines that operate under moderate loads whereas forged crankshafts are chosen in case of engines working under heavy load conditions. This is because forged crankshafts generally offer higher toughness, resistance to impact and fatigue and better strength to weight ratio than casted crankshafts (Montazersadgh, 2007). Machining starts with a solid piece of material, usually in the shape of a cylinder, from which the desired crankshaft is achieved by removing away unwanted material. The process is mainly used for small batch production of high quality and high priced crankshafts made from materials that are normally difcult to forge or cast. A comprehensive comparison of the above mentioned manufacturing processes with respect to fabrication aspects, mechanical properties and nal costs is available in Zorou and Fatemi (2005). The study allows concluding that conventional manufacturing routes are not suitable for exible small to medium-batch production (that is, low to medium volume of custom and specic products) and, therefore, are not appropriate for the growing agile manufacturing trends requiring very short life-cycles and very short development and production lead times. In fact, the present need for exible manufacturing processes requires the development of innovative technological solutions that are capable of

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Fig. 1. Mechanical and tribological characterization of the aluminium AA6061-O. (a) Stressstrain curve obtained from uniaxial compression tests. (b) Ring-test calibration curves showing the changes of the internal diameter as a function of the reduction in height for several friction factors and the experimental data obtained under dry lubricated conditions.

reducing the xed and capital costs of crankshaft production to a level where small to medium-batch production becomes economically feasible. Although the above conclusion may, at rst, appear obvious it represents a serious technological challenge for the current state-of-the art of crankshaft production due to the necessity of developing new manufacturing processes that are capable of producing components of high quality with low tooling costs. The fullment of this challenge will open new trends in crankshaft production and will be of great interest to the automotive, motorcycle and other industries that incorporate large or small internal combustion engines in their products. The work of Matsumoto et al. (2008) provides a rst attempt to reduce manufacturing costs and increase exibility by assembling crankshafts from several pieces. The solution is based in a new plastic joining method for xing bars to a plate in which bars kept at room temperature are pierced into a hot plate without lubrication and xed to the plate by thermal shrinkage of the plate after cooling. This paper presents a cost competitive alternative for the production of single piece crankshafts. The approach is based on an innovative tool concept that combines knowledge on buckling of solid rods under compression with exible construction methods based on modular dies to allow production to change rapidly from single to multi cylinder crankshafts with various main bearing journals, crankpins and crank webs. As with all new forming processes there is a need to understand the deformation mechanics in terms of its major parameters

with the objective of designing and fabricating a exible tool system to successfully shape solid rods into crankshafts. Under these circumstances, the aim of the present paper is threefold: (i) to introduce an innovative exible tool concept that allows low cost, single-stage, forming of solid rods into crankshafts, (ii) to investigate the deformation mechanics of the proposed forming process and (iii) to demonstrate its overall feasibility by experimentation with a laboratory prototype tool system conceived to operate exclusively with lightweight materials exhibiting high ductility in cold forming. The overall methodology was based on independently determined mechanical properties of the material, experimentation and process modelling using an in-house nite element computer program. The presentation is illustrated with selected test cases and is expected to contribute to transferable of original technological knowledge and to stimulate the extension of the proposed tool concept to hot forming of steel rods that are commonly utilized in crankshafts.

2. Material and tribological conditions The experiments were performed with solid rods of AA6061 aluminium alloy with 20 mm of diameter that were annealed by heating at 415 C during one hour and subsequently cooling in air. The stressstrain curve of AA6061-O was determined by means of compression tests carried out at room temperature and is dened

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Fig. 2. Flexible forming tool concept for shaping a solid rod into a crankshaft. (a) Schematic representation of a tool set equipped with a slide die module. (b) Picture of the tool set utilized for producing a crankshaft with a single crankpin. (c) Active tool components together with a picture of a crankshaft.

as a power function of the strain (Fig. 1a). (MPa) = 235 0.16 (1)

The compression specimens were produced from the supplied rod and the tests were performed in accordance with the ASTM E9-09 standards. The effects of strain rate and anisotropy on material ow behaviour were neglected. The role of friction at the contact interface between the rod and active tool parts (e.g. platens and dies) was determined by means of ring compression tests and made use of samples with 6:3:2 proportions in outside diameter, inside diameter and height, respectively. The tests were performed in dry lubricated conditions and samples were compressed between platens of the same material and surface roughness as the active tool parts that were utilized in the experiments with crankshafts.

The procedure for evaluating the friction factor made use of calibration curves, relating the changes in inner diameter with reduction in height during deformation. These curves were prepared in advance using the in-house nite element computer program I-form and the stressstrain relationship of AA6061-O dened in Eq. (1). The experimental results plotted in Fig. 1b allow the authors to estimate a friction factor m = 0.35. 3. Flexible forming tool As with all new forming processes there is a need to perform experiments with prototype tools for the purpose of formation of knowledge. Although the prototype tool utilized in the investigation was designed and fabricated to operate exclusively with lightweight materials in order to reduce development costs, this

Fig. 3. Single-stage forming of a round bar into a crankshaft. (a) Tool equipped with two slide die modules. (b) Picture of a crankshaft with two crankpins made from a PVC solid rod. (c) Tool equipped with four slide die modules.

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Fig. 4. Finite element model utilized in the numerical simulation of the process. Discretization of the preform by means of eight-node hexahedral elements was restricted to one-half of the geometry.

does not excludes the potential of applying the proposed forming concept to other materials such as steel. Fig. 2 illustrates both before and after stages of the laboratory prototype tool set build upon the innovative exible forming tool concept that was utilized for shaping a solid rod into a crankshaft with a single crankpin (that is, for a single cylinder engine). The tool consists of an upper driver plate, a lower xed plate, two die holders connected by horizontal sliders, a slide die module and an adjustable die stop. When the rod (preform) is compressed axially via a loading ram attached directly to the upper

plate, the die module moves downward but also horizontally by sliding along the horizontal guides. The horizontal movement of the die module is not driven by the press and allows plastic instability of the solid rod to develop outwardly in a controlled manner. The sense of displacement is towards the die holder located in the opposite side of the die stop and the amount of displacement, which depends on the initial unsupported portion of rod between the slide die and the plates, denes the distance from the centre of the crankpin to the centre of rotation of the shaft.

Fig. 5. Photographs showing samples of successful and unsuccessful crankshafts made from solid rod preforms with values of the slenderness ratio lu /d0 equal to 2.0, 4.0, 5.5 and 6.0. Details of the slide die module at the nal stage of deformation are included for the left and rightmost experimental test cases.

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Fig. 6. Evolution of the loaddisplacement curve for heading, buckling and single-stage forming of a solid rod into a crankshaft with two main bearing journals, a crankpin and two crank webs.

The slide die module is split in two halves for allowing the crankshaft to be removed from the tooling after forming. The resulting crankshaft, which consists of two main bearing journals (crankshaft support), two crank webs and a crankpin, is shown in Fig. 2c. Even though each slide die module serve only to shape a crankshaft with a single crankpin similar to that in Fig. 2c, the number of crankpins can be increased by summing-up additional die modules on top of each other. Fig. 3a shows a solution with two die modules that was utilized for cold forming the crankshaft of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) that is pictured in Fig. 3b. The crankshaft consists essentially of two crankpins placed at equal angular intervals around the axis of the shaft that are separated by a main bearing journal. Each crankpin has two adjacent crank webs and the application in PVC is a good example of the suitability of the proposed exible forming process to shape other materials than metals. Fig. 3c shows a complete tool system for producing crankshafts with four crankpins. The active parts of the exible forming tool are dedicated to a specic outside radius of the preform. In principle, the initial distance between the slide die modules and the upper and lower platens should cope with the minimum threshold ratio of the unsupported length to the diameter of the solid rod (slenderness ratio) that is necessary to ensure buckling. The adjustable die stop located in one side of the sliders avoids the formation of concentric or near-concentric parts and stimulates material to ow outwardly from its axis of compression in order to form the crankpins and the crank webs. This is critical because if the movement of the slide die module is prevented due to absence of buckling, the applied load will bend the horizontal sliders and may damage the tool. The laboratory prototype of the exible forming tool concept shown in Figs. 2 and 3 was installed in a mechanical testing machine and the experiments were performed with a constant displacement rate of 1.67 mm/s (100 mm/min).

conditions allowed numerical modelling of the process to be performed with the nite element ow formulation and enabled the authors to utilize the in-house computer program I-form that has been extensively validated against experimental measurements of metal forming processes since the end of the 80s (Alves et al., 2003).The nite element ow formulation giving support to I-form is built upon the following variational statement: =
V

1 dV + K 2

|ur | V

V 2 dV

Ti ui dS +
ST Sf 0

dur

dS (2)

4. Finite element modelling conditions Because the experiments were performed under a quasi-static constant displacement rate of the upper-table of the mechanical testing machine, no inertial effects on forming mechanisms are likely to occur and therefore no dynamic effects in deformation mechanics are needed to be taken into account. These operating

where K is a large positive constant enforcing the incompressibility constraint and V is the control volume limited by the surfaces SU and ST , where velocity and traction are prescribed, respectively. Friction at the contact interface Sf between workpiece and tooling is assumed to be a traction boundary condition and the additional power consumption term is modelled through the utilization of the law of constant friction f = mk. The friction factor m was set to 0.35 (refer to Section 2). The numerical evaluation of the volume integrals included in Eq. (2) was performed by means of a standard discretization procedure based on the utilization of eight-node hexahedral elements. In order to ensure the incompressibility requirements of the plastic deformation of metals, both complete and reduced Gauss point integration schemes were utilized. The nite element computer models were set-up in order to reproduce material ow in a tool system equipped with a single slide die module (Fig. 2) and on account of symmetry the discretization was simplied and restricted to one half of the initial preform (Fig. 4). The numerical integration of the friction boundary integral in (2) is performed by means of a ve Gauss point quadrature and the active tool components (plates and dies) were discretized by means of contact-friction spatial linear triangular elements (Fig. 4). Further details on the nite element procedures for discretization of Eq. (2) can be found elsewhere (Alves et al., 2003). The numerical simulations were accomplished through a succession of displacement increments each of one modelling approximately 0.1% of the initial preform length. The convergence of the numerical simulations was stable and the overall CPU time for a typical analysis containing roughly 5800 elements and 7000 nodal points was below 4 h on a standard laptop computer. No intermedi-

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Fig. 7. Flexible forming tool concept applied to the production of a crankshaft with a single crankpin. (a) Detail of the tool set-up at the end of the process. (b) Initial and computed evolution of the nite element mesh for 8%, 16% and 25% reduction of the initial unsupported height of the preform and comparison with an experimental part.

ate remeshing operations were utilized and, therefore, no inuence of eld variable recovery techniques on the nal results needed to be taken into consideration. 5. Results and discussion The work on the proposed exible forming concept was performed on a prototype laboratory tool set-up and consisted on shaping solid rods into crankshafts with a single crankpin. However, since the basis of the experimental and numerical analysis are the same for multi-crankpins, the procedures utilized could be modied and implemented for other types of crankshafts. 5.1. Modes of deformation The experiments conrmed the existence of three different modes of deformation. For small values of the slenderness ratio lu /d0 (which is the ratio of the unsupported length lu to the diameter d0 of the solid rod preform) material ows uniformly around its axis of compression in order to form a concentric double-headed part instead of a crankpin while for large values of lu /d0 material buckles, shifts sideways and restrictions are set by the maximum allowed horizontal displacement of the slide die module (Fig. 5).

This difference in behaviour is due to the fact that for small values of lu /d0 material ow prevents the horizontal movement of the slide die module whereas for large values of lu /d0 the crank webs are extensively formed into a V-shape before being compressed between the tool plates and the slide die modules. In-between the abovementioned modes of deformation it is possible to shape solid rods into crankshafts with appropriate crank webs. The initial unsupported length of the rod preform placed between the upper and lower die plates lu denes the volume and shape of the crank webs and determines the distance from the centre of the crankpin to the centre of rotation of the shaft (refer to the intermediate crankshafts in Fig. 5). 5.2. Forming load and material ow Fig. 6 shows the evolution of the loaddisplacement curve for the fundamental modes of deformation of solid rods under uniform axial compression (Lange, 1985): (i) heading in case of a short rod with a slenderness ratio lu /d0 = 2.0 and (ii) buckling with the upper end free in case of a long rod with a slenderness ratio lu /d0 = 4.0. Both loads grow monotonically at the beginning of deformation but, while heading gives rise to a rapid increase of the compressive load as deformation progresses, buckling experiences a low rate of

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Fig. 9. Crankshafts with one and four crankpins. In case of the crankshaft with four crankpins the rightmost crankpin was shaped with a smaller amount of material than the other three.

Fig. 8. Computed distribution of the effective strain at the end of the process. The view of the sliced crankshaft show details of the distribution inside the component.

preform placed between the upper and lower plates of a tool module on the geometry of the crank webs and on the distance from the centre of the crankpin to the centre of rotation of the shaft. In order to highlight the exibility and potential provided by this feature of the proposed forming process authors decided to form a non-symmetric crankshaft that presents differences between the left and rightmost crankpins (Fig. 9). The non-symmetric crankshaft pictured in Fig. 9 was obtained simply by shaping the rightmost crankpin with a smaller amount of material than the other three crankpins and was included in the presentation to demonstrate the exibility and potential of the proposed forming process. 6. Conclusions This paper is about looking to the fundamental modes of deformation of solid rods under uniform axial compression in a different perspective. The slenderness ratio related to the unsupported length of the preforms that denes the threshold for producing sound concentric parts was deliberately exceeded in order to develop an innovative exible forming tool concept that takes advantage of buckling and non-uniform material ow around the axis of compression to successfully shape the crankpins and crank webs of crankshafts. The feasibility of the proposed concept was investigated by means of nite element modelling and experimentation using a laboratory prototype tool conceived to operate exclusively with lightweight materials exhibiting high ductility in cold forming. Tryouts were also performed with polymers, namely PVC. The exibility inherent to the proposed tool concept allows die set modules to be easily attached or removed in order to quickly respond to a need for producing customized crankshafts in small to medium lots, in very short time frames and with a cost effective mode of operation. Acknowledgement The work of Fabio Silva during the investigation is greatly acknowledged. References
Alves, M.L., Rodrigues, J.M.C., Martins, P.A.F., 2003. Simulation of three-dimensional bulk forming processes by the nite element ow formulation. Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering Institute of Physics 11, 803821. Behrens, B.-A., Doege, E., Reinsch, S., Telkamp, K., Daehndel, H., Specker, A., 2007. Precision forging processes for high-duty automotive components. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 185, 139146. Lange, K., 1985. Handbook of Metal Forming. McGraw-Hill, New York.

increase up to a maximum value and is followed by diminishing for large amounts of deformation. This is because bent forms of equilibrium, resulting from buckling, need small values of the axial compressive load as the degree of bending increases. As seen in Fig. 6, the evolution of the loaddisplacement curve for a crankshaft with a slenderness ratio lu /d0 = 4.0 is located inbetween heading and buckling with the upper end free. A close observation of the experimental and nite element predicted evolution of the loaddisplacement curve allow the identication of three different phases: (i) the transient beginning of axial compression, (ii) the low rate of growing typical of buckling and (iii) the rising at a moderate rate of growing due to material being progressively deformed over the surfaces of the die side module and platens. At the end of the process the crankshaft is totally constrained between these active parts of the tool set-up (Fig. 7a). From what was mentioned before, the deformation mode of the proposed exible forming process to shape solid rods into crankshafts may be classied as controlled buckling under axial compression via slide die modules. The predicted nite element evolution of the geometry of the crankshaft during forming is plotted in Fig. 7b and the correlation with the experimental part is very good. Fig. 8 contains the nite element predicted distribution of the effective strain at the end of the forming process. The mechanics of the process is a combination of buckling and shearing along two inclined planes placed inside the crank webs. The highest values of effective strain are located in these planes (refer to the sliced view of the crankshaft) and are due to the accumulation of high localized values of strain-rate during the forming process. If necessary, the level of damage in this region can be eliminated by means of heattreatment. 5.3. Flexibility and potential One of the key features of the proposed forming process is the inuence of the initial unsupported length lu of the solid rod

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L.M. Alves, P.A.F. Martins / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211 (2011) 467474 Thomas, A., 1986. Forging Methods. Materials Forming Technology, Shefeld, UK. Zorou, M., Fatemi, A., 2005. A literature review on durability evaluation of crankshafts including comparisons of competing manufacturing processes and cost analysis. In: 26th Forging Industry Technical Conference, Chicago, USA.

Matsumoto, R., Hanami, S., Ogura, A., Yoshimura, H., Osakada, K., 2008. New plastic joining method using indentation of cold bar to hot forged part. CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technology 57, 279282. Montazersadgh, F., 2007. Stress analysis and optimization of crankshafts subject to dynamic loading. MSc Thesis. University of Toledo, USA.