Numerical Determination of Thermal Contact Resistance for Nonisothermal Forging Processes
A numerical study is conducted to estimate the thermal contact resistance (TCR) between the tool and the workpiece during slow nonisothermal forging processes. A finite difference method is used to determine the TCR from a thermomechanical microscopic model. Correlations of the numerical results are developed for the TCR as a function of the interface geometry and the thermal properties. The method used to introduce these correlations in forging softwares, to account for a time and space-dependent TCR instead of a constant arbitrary value, is given. The predictive capability of the correlations is partially validated by comparing their outputs with TCR results from the literature. [S0022-1481(00)00903-8]