Electromagnetic forming A coupled numerical electromagnetic-mechanical-electrical approach compared to measurements A. Giannoglou, A. Kladas and J. Tegopoulos Electric Power Division, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece A. Koumoutsos, D. Manolakos and A. Mamalis Manufacturing Technology Division, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece Keywords Electromagnetic fields, Finite element analysis, Manufacturing systems, Numerical analysis Abstract Undertakes an analysis of electromagnetic forming process. Despite the fact that it is an old process, it is able to treat current problems of advanced manufacturing technology. Primary emphasis is placed on presentation of the physical phenomena, which govern the process, as well as their numerical representation by means of simplified electrical equivalent circuits and fully coupled fields approach of the electromagnetic-mechanical-electric phenomena involved. Compares the numerical results with measurements. Finally, draws conclusions and perspectives for future work. 1. Introduction The basic electromagnetic forming process is the compression of a metal tube inside a solenoid coil connected with a capacitor via a switch (simplified equivalent circuit shown in Figure 1(a)). The analysis of this case can fully reveal the physical principles of the process (Stadelmaier, 2000) and also its basic technological aspects ( Plum, 1996). The analytical treatment of the process in terms of equivalent circuits as well as field analysis method has been established since the end of 1970s. The main disadvantage of such approaches is that they cannot be easily applied to more complicated coil geometries, which are often used in industrial applications. In the present paper, electromagnetic forming is modeled by both elaborated equivalent circuits and coupled field approaches. The latter method involves implementation of the well-known commercial F.E. Code ANSYS Multiphysics 6th edition. The main advantage of this code is that it can simultaneously treat both the electromagnetic and mechanical aspects of the process in the same environment. Special attention is paid in order to be easy to apply the chosen modeling solutions to the more complicated industrial forming coils. 2. Modeling procedure Both electric equivalent circuit analysis and coupled electromagnetic-mechanical-electrical field approaches have been used for the process analysis. The latter technique is sophisticated and the problem configuration and assumptions adopted are extensively described hereafter. The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0332-1649.htm Electromagnetic forming 789 COMPEL: The International Journal for Computation and Mathematics in Electrical and Electronic Engineering Vol. 23 No. 3, 2004 pp. 789-799 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0332-1649 DOI 10.1108/03321640410540737