In the forming industry, the workpiece geometry plays a critical
part in the quality of finish forgings. The optimum workpiece
geometry can be determined via FE simulation instead of the traditional
‘trial-and-error’ experiments which are very costly. In this
study, the workpiece geometry is designed as symmetric form for
ease of processing and research. The schematic of the workpiece is
presented in Fig. 13, in which D1, D2, H are the geometry parameters
restricted by volume constancy principle. When D1, D2 are given
as the basic parameters, another parameter H is thus
determined. Five designs are taken into account and the parameters
are listed in Table 5. Additionally, Fig. 14 illustrates the relative
position of the initial workpiece and the lower die for different
designs.