Determination of Johnson Cook Material Model Constants and Their Influence on Machining Simulations of Tungsten Heavy Alloy

Tungsten Heavy Alloys (WHA) are used in counterbalance and ballast weights for aerodynamic balancing in fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Manufacturing these components for closer tolerances using machining is a challenging task. The present work aims to develop a 2D Finite Element (FE) model to simulate the chip formation process during machining of WHA using Johnson Cook Material Model (JCMM). The model constants for 95%WHA are determined based on the high strain rate test data using least square method. The calculated values are further optimized using Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, which are then used as material inputs for FE simulation of machining WHA. The predicted results such as cutting force, chip geometry, shear stress, shear angle are presented and compared with the experimental results under similar cutting conditions. It has been observed that the constants obtained from ABC algorithm show minimum error in the cutting performance measures for all the experimental results.