Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM
Process simulation and behavior of porous materials
When powder technological processes are employed to manufacture porous materials such as sintered steel, characteristic properties are exhibited which to be described requires specialized material modeling. At the Fraunhofer IWM, corresponding models based on the Gurson model (Gologanu, Ponte-Castaneda) are implemented in the finite element (FE) program ABAQUS®. This allows the simulation of final processing steps, such as surface densification of gear wheels so as to improve product properties as well as the later in-service behavior with consideration of the locally varying lifetime conditions.