VIII International Conference on Computational Plasticity COMPLAS VIII E. Oñate and D. R. J. Owen (Eds)  CIMNE, Barcelona, 2005 ON THE NUMERICAL MODELLING OF FORMING PROCESSES USING THE PARTICLE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD Juan Carlos Cante * , Javier Oliver † and Carlos G. Ferrari † * Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) Campus Terrassa, TR45 - C/. Colom, 11, 08222 Spain e-mail: juan.cante@upc.es † Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) Campus Nord UPC, Edifici C1 - Jordi Girona 1-3, 08034 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: xavier.oliver@upc.es - ferrari@cimne.upc.es Key words: Particle methods, Powder transfer, Forming Processes Summary. The aim of this work is to show the potential of the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) in the simulation of the powder transfer stage, in powder metallurgy industrial processes. The most innovative aspects of the work are: a) the intensive use of the particle finite element method technology to trace the motion of a representative set of particles and b) the solution of inherent problems associated to the transfer information between different configurations. 1 INTRODUCTION Although the finite element method 1 is still one of the most powerful tools used in engineering analysis, it exhibits some disadvantages in problems where very large strains and displacements occur. These difficulties are related to the appearance of high mesh distortions typical of forming processes (metal machining, powder transfer, extrusion, rolling and others). As a consequence Jacobian determinants become negative at a number of sampling points during the process, and make impossible to continue the calculation. In order to overcome this problem, other techniques have been investigated. Recently, meshless methods combined with optimal connectivity generators, as Delaunay triangulations, have been successfully explored in Lagrangian fluid problems 2 . This technical combination is known as Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM). The method defines the continuum mechanics behavior of the solid in terms of a finite number of particles (of infinitesimal size) from which the behavior of the remaining particles is described by interpolation. The process of calculation, the actualization of the resulting fields and the setting of new initial conditions are repeated at each time step of the simulation.