A modified multi-mesh method for accelerating numerical simulation of flow forming

Yun-Da Dong; Mei Zhan; Xiao-Guang Fan; Zhuo-Lei Zhai; Yi-Yang Yang; Heng Cao; Fei Ma

doi:10.1007/s40436-026-00602-2

Advances in Manufacturing ›› :1 -23. DOI: 10.1007/s40436-026-00602-2

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A modified multi-mesh method for accelerating numerical simulation of flow forming

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¹Shaanxi Key Laboratory of High‑Performance Precision Forming Technology and Equipment, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 710072, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

²State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 710072, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

^a zhanmei@nwpu.edu.cn

^b fxg3200@nwpu.edu.cn

Yun-Da Dong

Yun-Da Dong is a Ph.D. candidate at School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research field is high performance computation technologies for accelerating the numerical simulation of flow forming process. His primary research focus lies in the application of parallel computation, generalized finite elements, and adaptive mesh regeneration technologies in flow forming simulation.

Mei Zhan

Mei Zhan is a full professor in Northwestern Polytechnical University and Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor appointed by the Ministry of Education. She received her Ph.D. degree in Material Processing Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2000. Her research interests include theory, technology, and equipment for precise plastic forming of high-performance lightweight complicated components.

Xiao-Guang Fan

Xiao-Guang Fan is a full professor in Northwestern Polytechnical University and recipient of the NSFC Outstanding Youth Science Foundation. He received his Ph.D. degree in Material Processing Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2012. His research interests include theory and technology of high-performance and precise plastic forming of difficult-to-deform materials

Zhuo-Lei Zhai

Zhuo-Lei Zhai is a Ph.D. candidate at School of Materials Science and ngineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University. Her research field is shell elements and multi-mesh method in fast shear spinning simulation.

Yi-Yang Yang

Yi-Yang Yang is a postgraduate at School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research field is the explicit format of virtual element method and its application in flow forming simulation.

Heng Cao

Heng Cao is a postgraduate at School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research field is accelerating the spinning-extrusion forming process by using adaptive mesh technology_.

Fei Ma

Fei Ma is a full professor in Northwestern Polytechnical University and Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor appointed by the Ministry of Education. He received his Ph.D. degree in Material Processing Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2009. His research interests include the advanced plastic forming theory, technology and equipment in aerospace applications

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Abstract

In the aerospace and defense industries, flow forming is a critical process for the integral fabrication of large-scale tubular components. Simulating this process using the finite element method (FEM) requires an excessively fine mesh to accurately capture the contact interactions, resulting in an infeasibly high computational cost. To address this challenge, a modified multimesh method is proposed to accelerate the simulation by reducing the overall mesh scale while preserving local refinement. This method employs a customized three-mesh system that enables the rapid and automatic construction of locally refined meshes using hierarchical 4- and 9-refined templates. Additionally, radial basis function interpolation (RBFI) combined with the restricted additive Schwarz method (RASM) to efficiently transfer state variables among meshes via localized subregion sampling. The complete multi-mesh framework was implemented in Python and integrated into ABAQUS/Explicit. Validation across multiple flow-forming cases demonstrated that both the final geometry and state variable distributions aligned closely with those obtained from traditional fine-mesh simulations. In the studied forward flow-forming examples, the proposed method reduced the computational time by up to 59.09%.

Keywords

Multi-mesh method / Flow forming / Hierarchical refinement templates / Radial basis function (RBF)

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Yun-Da Dong, Mei Zhan, Xiao-Guang Fan, Zhuo-Lei Zhai, Yi-Yang Yang, Heng Cao, Fei Ma. A modified multi-mesh method for accelerating numerical simulation of flow forming. Advances in Manufacturing 1-23 DOI:10.1007/s40436-026-00602-2

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