Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275

Simulation of the orthogonal metal cutting process using an

arbitrary Lagrangian±Eulerian ®nite-element method
M. Movahhedy, M.S. Gadala*, Y. Altintas
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia, 2324 Main Mall, Vancouver, Canada V6T 1N5

Received 3 March 1999

Abstract

Two different ®nite-element formulations, the Lagrangian and the Eulerian, have been used extensively in the modeling of the orthogonal
metal cutting process. Each of these formulations has some disadvantages that make it inef®cient for modeling the cutting process. In this
paper, it is shown that a more general formulation, the arbitrary Lagrangian±Eulerian (ALE) method may be used to combine the
advantages and avoid the shortcomings of both of the previous methods. It is also shown that due to the characteristics of the cutting
process, this formulation offers the most ef®cient modeling approach. Some preliminary results of this approach are presented to
demonstrate its capabilities and potential in simulating the cutting process. # 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Orthogonal metal cutting process; ALE; Finite-element method

1. Introduction
Metal cutting is one of the most common manufacturing
operations, and a great deal of research has been devoted in
understanding the mechanics of this process, with the
objective of obtaining more effective cutting tools and more
ef®cient manufacturing process plans. Traditionally, these
objectives have been achieved by experimentation and pro-
totyping. In recent years, however, with the surge in com-
putational power and capacity, the focus has turned to
numerical simulation of the process with the objective of
replacing costly experimentation and prototyping with
numerical simulation. Many such simulations have appeared
in the literature.
Despite the many simulation attempts reported in the
literature, it is perhaps fair to say that cutting simulation
has not become a common tool in industry, perhaps due to
doubts about the reliability of such results and lack of
suf®cient veri®cation. Much of this is related to the inherent
complexity of the process, which probably makes it one of
the most challenging processes from the numerical point of
view. Although the actual machining process is simpli®ed to
the most basic 2D plane-strain problem, orthogonal cutting,
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: ‡1-604-822-2777; fax: ‡1-604-822-2403.
E-mail address: gadala@mech.ubc.ca (M.S. Gadala)
there are still many issues to deal with in such a numerical
simulation.
The cutting process usually involves large deformation of
the material at very high strain rates (103±107 sÿ1) with the
strains being much greater than unity. The chip produced is
in contact with tool face in a highly pressured zone causing
sticking friction, which will transform to sliding friction
further up the tool face. Large plastic work and high friction
generate an enormous amount of thermal energy in that
locality, causing an increase in the temperature of the metal.
The strain rate and temperature have opposite effects on the
properties of the material. Considering that all of these
phenomena occur in a very tiny region around the tip of
the tool, the complexity of the process becomes evident. In a
real machining process, there are tool wear and vibrations,
also, which affect the process. The stress, strain, strain rate
and temperature variables are all dependent on the cutting
parameters such as the feed rate, and the cutting speed as
well as on the geometrical features of the tool such as the
rake angle and the nose radius. Further complicating the case
is the fact that it is very dif®cult, if not impossible, to
accurately obtain the ¯ow model of the material under these
conditions.
Apart from the complexities of the actual cutting process,
there are aspects that make the numerical simulation of the
cutting process particularly dif®cult. As with the analysis of

0924-0136/00/$ ± see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 4 - 0 1 3 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 4 8 0 - 5
268 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275
other metalworking operations, large deformation of the
material results in the distortion of the elements, causing
deterioration of the results. On the other hand, unconstrained
¯ow of material occurs over free boundaries, which form a
large area of the material boundaries. The boundary condi-
tions change during the course of the analysis as the contact
between the tool and the chip is being developed. However,
more importantly, and unlike many forming processes, there
is cutting action in which the bulk of the material is
branched. This action is in a sense similar to what occurs
in elastic±plastic crack-propagation problems. Simulating
such cutting action is perhaps one of the most challenging
aspects in this analysis. In this paper, the authors focus on the
numerical aspects of the simulation of the cutting process
and propose an alternative approach to deal with them.
2. Numerical aspects of cutting simulation
The ®nite-element method has been largely used for the
simulation of metalworking operations. From the viewpoint
of numerical formulation, these analyses may be divided
into two major approaches: the Lagrangian approach and the
Eulerian approach. In the Lagrangian approach, a natural
approach for solid-mechanics analysis, the FE mesh consists
of material elements that cover the region of analysis
exactly. These elements are attached to the material and
are deformed with the deformation of the workpiece. This
approach is particularly very convenient when uncon-
strained ¯ow of material is involved, since the FE mesh
will accurately represent the material boundaries during the
course of the analysis. The Eulerian approach, on the
other hand, is more suitable for ¯uid-¯ow problems
involving a control volume. In this method, the mesh con-
sists of elements that are ®xed in space and cover the control
volume, and the material properties are calculated at
®xed spatial locations as the material ¯ows through the
mesh. This approach has also been used to model the large
deformation of solids, mostly in metal forming analyses.
Due to the ®xed nature of the approach, it is most suitable for
cases where there are minimal free boundaries, i.e., where
the boundaries of the material region are known a priori.
Examples of these cases are closed-die forging and extrusion
problems.
Focusing on cutting process simulation, both approaches
have been used extensively to model this process. In addition
to relative ease in formulation and implementation, what
makes the Lagrangian approach very attractive for this
process is that the boundaries of the workpiece are mostly
traction-free, and even the boundaries that are not free on the
tool face are changing during the course of analysis. In this
approach, the analysis can be started from indentation to the
incipient stage to steady state. The chip is formed easily to
its proper thickness, and no a priori assumption is needed
about the shape of the chip. This approach, however, has
some disadvantages too. With the deformation of the mate-
rial in front of the tool tip, the elements are greatly distorted
such that sometimes the mesh has to be regenerated. More
importantly, the simulation of cutting action at the tip of the
tool has been traditionally achieved by separation of nodes
in front of the tool tip, similar to what is usually done for the
propagation of a self-similar crack in fracture-mechanics
problems. Despite its simplicity, this node-separation
method creates many problems that adversely affect the
results. First and foremost is the choice of the criterion based
on which a node in front of the tool tip is allowed to separate.
Many criteria have been used in the literature, ranging from
simple geometrical or strain criteria to more complex frac-
ture-mechanics criteria [1±13]. Even if the type of criterion
is chosen properly, there is no physical indication as to what
criterion value should be adopted. All of this makes the
separation criterion more of arbitrary nature, with great
effects on the results.
A critical look at the literature shows that whilst most
researchers have used this approach, there is no consensus
on the appropriate criterion. Usui and Shirakashi [1] use a
geometrical criterion based on the separation of a node when
it is suf®ciently close to the tool tip. The node is split into
two nodes, one moving up along the rake face and the other
remaining on the machined surface. Komvopoulos and
Erpenbeck [2], Zhang and Bagchi [3], and Shih [4] use a
similar distance criterion. Whilst these studies all agree that
the value of the critical distance at which the node splits is
crucial to the success of simulation, they use different
values. In [2], a distance tolerance of 0.5L is used, where
L is the side length of the element in front of the tool tip,
whereas in [3], a value of (0.1±0.3)L is adopted and in [4], an
arbitrary value based on trial runs is used.
Carroll and Strenkowski [5] use a separation criterion
based on the effective plastic strain at the node nearest to the
cutting edge. The typical criterion values in their analysis are
between 0.4 and 0.65 depending on the cutting conditions.
Xie et al. [6] use such a criterion with a critical value of 0.5,
whilst Hashemi et al. [7] adopt values that ranged from 0.6
to 1.5.
Iwata et al. [8] employ a stress-based ductile fracture
criterion as the chip-formation criterion. Ceretti et al. [9] use
a damage criterion. Lin and Lin [10] note that the critical
value for a criterion based on the effective plastic strain will
be dependent on cutting parameters such as the depth of cut,
thus such a criterion lacks generality. They propose a
criterion based on the strain energy density, which is de®ned
as a material constant obtained from the tensile test. Chen
and Black [11] emphasize that the separation criterion
should not be treated only as a numerical parameter, but
as a material constant that may be measured experimentally.
They point out, however, that the critical strain energy
density determined from the uniaxial tensile test cannot
be representative of the cutting operation, and that combina-
tions of two or more separation criteria may also be used.
Huang and Black [12] study various combinations and
magnitudes of separation criteria and conclude that whilst
 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275
Fig. 1. Lagrangian cutting analysis with a 308 rake angle tool. Effective plastic strain contours are also shown.
the type of criterion may not be crucial, its magnitude has a
great effect on the stress and strain distributions in the chip
and the machined surface. They prefer a geometrical criter-
ion for steady-state cutting simulation, because it is easier to
determine.
Imperative to using a node-splitting method is that there
has to be a pre-de®ned parting line of the nodes, in front of
the tool tip, that will be ``unzipped'' as the tool advances. In
addition to this requiring on a priori assumption, it some-
times creates problems, as the parting line may be pushed
out of position during the course of deformation and thus the
target nodes will not be in front of the tool tip at the time of
separation. The magnitude of the separation criterion has a
profound effect on this, and may have to be relaxed to avoid
it. On the other extreme, too relaxed a criterion creates an
unrealistic material gap, which moves in front of the tool tip.
This gap is commonly observed in the node-splitting
approach, but not in experimental studies involving ductile
materials. This crack also shifts the points of maximum
stress from the tip of the tool to a point further up the tool,
affecting the predicted shear angle. Finally, the use of
parting line effectively restricts the analysis only to cutting
with sharp-edge tools.
There are also other side effects to node separation; it
creates unbalanced forces in the analysis domain which
should be treated. Also, a Lagrangian approach with node
separation does not perform well for small or negative rake
angles, including problems involving tools with chamfer or a
nose radius. Although most of the above problems can be
alleviated by using a denser mesh in the locality of the tool
tip, that in itself increases computational intensity, and
heightens the need for rezoning of the mesh. Therefore,
the problem becomes highly mesh-dependent.
269
To demonstrate some of the problems pertinent to the
Lagrangian approach with the node-splitting method, the
authors performed a series of simulations using the updated
Lagrangian approach and shear friction on the tool face. The
material data are the same, as will be reported in Section 4 of
this paper. The nodes are separated based on a critical
distance criterion, the value of which is ®ne tuned in trial
runs to ®nd the best compromise between having a smaller
crack ahead of the tool and avoiding the shifting of the
parting line. Fig. 1 shows a simulation with a 308 rake angle
tool. It can be seen that a crack is moving ahead of the tip,
and that due to shifting of the point of maximum stress
further up on the tool, the shear plane does not emanate from
the tool tip. The inadequacy of the node-splitting approach
for smaller rake angles is shown in Fig. 2 which illustrates a
simulation with a 108 rake angle tool. Although the critical
distance is ®ne tuned to secure the best result, it is seen that
the machined surface is unrealistically wavy due to shifting
of the parting line during the process. A larger criterion value
will alleviate this problem at the expense of having a larger
crack ahead of the tool. Fig. 3 shows the normal and
tangential forces on the tool in Lagrangian simulation.
The oscillation in the forces is due to successive separation
of nodes in front of the tool tip. Every time, a node is split,
the forces on the tool are suddenly reduced, and then
gradually increased until the next node is released.
The dif®culties with the Lagrangian formulation with the
node-splitting method have prompted some researchers to
look for alternative methods for simulating the cutting
action. For example, Ceretti et al. [9] used a scheme that
deletes the elements that reach a critical damage value.
Obviously, this approach violates the fundamental law of
continuity due to loss of volume, and thus the mesh around
270 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275
Fig. 2. Lagrangian cutting analysis with a 108 rake angle tool. Contours of effective plastic strain are also shown.
the tip should be very ®ne to minimize this volume loss.
Furthermore, the method is too sensitive to the criterion
value, as sometimes elements in places other than those
neighboring to the tool tip may be targeted for deletion. The
authors also report that after deletion of damaged elements,
the domain boundaries have to be smoothed or else the
subsequent remeshing attempt will fail. Overall, this
approach seems to be too intrusive on the part of the analyst.
Modi®cation to this approach may result in better simula-
tion. As is done in crack-propagation problems, and instead
of deleting the element completely, the stiffness character-
istics of the element may be adjusted to re¯ect a zero or very
small value in the separation direction. Such modi®cation,
however, will still suffer from the other problems of the
element-deletion method.
Fig. 3. Normal and tangential forces in Lagrangian cutting analysis.
A viable alternative for node splitting within a Lagrangian
analysis is presented by simulating the cutting action as the
continuous indentation and ¯ow of the material around the
tool. Based on some experimental evidence, Madhavan et al.
[14] suggested that the indentation might be the actual chip-
formation mechanism in ductile materials. In the indentation
approach, cutting is simulated by forcing the tool into the
material in small increments, causing the ¯ow of the mate-
rial around the tool tip. As the tool advances, the FE mesh is
distorted and has to be regenerated. In [14], the remeshing is
triggered when the effective plastic strain exceeds a value of
0.25 at any point in the workpiece. Sekhon and Chenot [15]
used a similar approach in which the FE mesh is checked at
the end of each increment and the mesh is automatically
regenerated if a distorted element is detected. Marusich and
Ortiz [16] used continuous remeshing in combination with a
mesh-smoothing algorithm in order to resolve mesh distor-
tion problems. In their approach, elements are targeted for
re®nement when their plastic power contents exceed a
prescribed tolerance.
Although the indentation approach overcomes many of
the problems pertinent to the node-splitting approach, it
comes at a high computational cost. First, the mesh has to be
very ®ne around the tool tip, or else the material will overlap
the tool in between the nodal points, and subsequently, the
remeshing of the workpiece will amount to the loss of the
overlapped material. Second, due to highly localized defor-
mation and ®neness of elements, the mesh has to be regen-
erated frequently. In exemplary simulations performed using
DEFORM-2D software and its automatic remeshing mod-
ule, the entire region had to be remeshed at intervals of less
than 10 incremental steps, and still considerable volume of
material had to be cut out due to overlapping with the tool in
every remeshing. Finally, once the FE mesh is regenerated,
 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275
material variables have to be interpolated from the old mesh
to the new mesh. Since the two meshes may be considerably
different from each other, this can introduce errors, which
will eventually deteriorate the results. It should also be noted
that even when the difference between the old and the
regenerated mesh is small, the interpolation process is
approximate and cannot account for the history of deforma-
tion. Also, there will be a speci®c need to use very small
incremental steps and high computational power. As an
example, Marusich and Ortiz [16] report that a typical
simulation (including thermal analysis) involving 1100
six-node triangular elements required one million incre-
mental steps which took 20 h of CPU time on a DEC
3000 workstation. It is obvious that the computational cost
of this approach is sometimes prohibitive.
In the Eulerian approach, on the other hand, none of the
problems pertinent to the Lagrangian formulation exist in
the modeling of the cutting action. The cutting action is
modeled as the ¯ow of the material around the tool. In this
respect, it is similar to the above-mentioned indentation.
However, since the mesh is ®xed spatially, no mesh distor-
tion occurs and consequently, no remeshing is required. The
density of the mesh is only dictated by the expected gra-
dients of stress and strain. Thus, the Eulerian approach is
more ef®cient computationally and is best for modeling the
region around the tool tip, at least for ductile materials. This
approach, however, is not suitable for modeling the uncon-
strained ¯ow of material on free boundaries. The fact that the
mesh is spatially ®xed means that an a priori assumption
should be made about the shape of the chip [5,17±19] and the
contact conditions. Because of the ®xed mesh, the contact
length and the free boundaries of the chip cannot be devel-
oped as natural results of deformation, and adjustment of the
boundaries are necessary outside of the solution domain.
Commonly, an iterative procedure is employed in which the
velocities at free boundary nodes are checked to ensure that
their components normal to the boundary are zero and that
the boundary is a streamline. This involves changing the
boundary, adjustment of the mesh and interpolation of
variables until convergence is achieved. It should be noted
that the Eulerian formulation contains convective terms
which make material time derivatives much more dif®cult
to handle. History-dependent material properties have to be
interpolated in an approximate way and material points have
to be traced back to the ®xed mesh points. Many attempts
have been made to do this. For example, Abo-Elkhier et al.
[23] used a method in which a hypothetical mesh is gener-
ated using the displaced material points and an interpolation
using element shape functions is performed between the
hypothetical mesh and the ®xed Eulerian mesh. Such a
process is computationally very intensive, introduces inter-
polation errors and creates convergence problems.
The above-mentioned problems make the implementation
of an Eulerian method more dif®cult than the implementa-
tion of the Lagrangian method. In the Eulerian cutting
analyses appearing in the literature, the ¯ow approach,
271
introduced initially by Zienkiewicz and Godbole [20], is
used in which the elasticity of the material is neglected, and
thus the residual stresses in the machined surface cannot be
predicted.
3. Arbitrary Lagrangian±Eulerian formulation
It can be seen that both the Lagrangian and the Eulerian
methods are inef®cient in modeling some of the character-
istics of the cutting process. The Lagrangian performs well
in modeling unconstrained formation of chip boundaries and
contact length, whilst the Eulerian is the method of choice as
far as the material ¯ow around the tip of the tool is con-
cerned. Therefore, it would be ideal if these two methods
could be combined in a single analysis and each of them
used where they perform the best. A more general approach,
the ALE method provides this opportunity. In an ALE
analysis, the FE mesh is neither attached to the material
nor ®xed in space. The mesh, in general, has a motion that is
independent of the material. This general approach can be
reduced to Eulerian or updated Lagrangian analyses as two
special cases. In the following sections a scheme for the
ALE method and its application in cutting analysis are
reported.
3.1. ALE procedure
Starting from the principle of virtual work, an ALE
formulation is derived in terms of two sets of velocities,
those of the material points v and those of the grid points v.
These velocities are in general independent of each other,
but there exists a one-to-one mapping between the material
and the computational (grid) domains, provided that the
Jacobian of the mapping function is non-zero. To satisfy this,
the boundaries of the two domain should coincide, requiring
that:
…v ÿ v†
n ˆ 0 (1)
where n is the normal vector at any point on the boundary.
The physical interpretation of Eq. (1) is that no normal
convective velocity occurs across the boundary if the surface
particles remain on the surface.
To establish the mapping between the two domains, the
time derivatives of a function f (x) in the computational
reference system is expressed in terms of its material time
derivative in the material reference system (x):
df
f 0 ˆ f_ ‡ …v ÿ v†
(2)
dx
where f 0 and f_ are the computational and material time
derivatives, respectively. Eq. (2) is important in the incre-
mental analysis since it gives the relationship between the
material-associated quantities and the grid-point-associated
quantities, and thus makes it possible to track the material
deformation history when ALE is used.
272 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275
Using the above equation in the expression for virtual
work and after linearization of the equation, the following
®nal incremental ALE formulation will result (the details
can be found in [21]):
Z 
@dui t @dt vj t @dt vk t
t s_ ij ÿ t
sik t ‡ s ij t ‡… 
v k ÿ t
v k †
t v @ xj @ xk @ xk
Z  
@dt vk @dt fij t
ÿ dui t fiB t ‡ …t vk ÿ t vk † t
tv @ xk @ xk
Z 
@dt vk @dt vj
ÿ dui t fiS t ÿ t sik t nj t ‡…t vk ÿ t vk †t nj t
ts @ xk @ xk
Z Z
ˆ dui t fiB dt V ‡ dui t fiS dt S
tv ts
where the left superscript t refers to variables at time t (the
start of the incremental step), f B and f S denote body and
surface forces, respectively, sij are components of Cauchy
stress tensor, nj represents boundary normals, and dui is
virtual displacement.
Discretization of the above equation yields an unsymme-
trical stiffness matrix with 2N unknown variables whilst
having only N equilibrium equations. Supplementary equa-
tions are needed, therefore, to solve this set of equations.
Supplementary equations are provided by assigning the
desired grid velocities in each incremental step at the start
of that step. Any desired criterion can be used in deciding the
mesh motion, re¯ecting the arbitrary nature of the ALE. For
example, the mesh motion can be designed such that mesh
distortion is minimized and elements retain their regular
shapes throughout the analysis. Without loss of generality,
the mesh motion can be expressed in terms of material
velocity in the following form:
vi ˆ a…i† ‡ b…i† vi
(no sum on i), where a(i) and b(i) are arbitrary coef®cients
decided by the mesh-motion scheme. This form of expres-
sion for vi is very helpful in two respects. First, it helps to
treat the supplementary constraint equations on the element
level, thus reducing the size of the global stiffness matrix to
N instead of 2N, and second, it simpli®es degeneration of the
ALE equations to the Eulerian and updated Lagrangian
approaches as special cases:
if a…i† ˆ b…i† ˆ 0; Eulerian formulation
if a…i† ˆ 0 and b…i† ˆ 1; updated Lagrangian formulation
Note that in a general ALE motion, both of the coef®cients
can be non-zero.
As indicated above, the stiffness matrix resulting from Eq.
(3) is non-symmetrical in general. It may be shown that
when speci®c constitutive relations are introduced, the ALE
formulation may be considered a logical extension to an
updated Lagrangian formulation [24]. In other words, pro-
blems formulated with ALE may be solved using a regular
symmetric Gauss elimination solver as the case in total or
updated Lagrangian methods, by simply handling some
terms for the non-symmetric contributions to the stiffness
matrix as loading terms and moving them to the right-hand
side of the equilibrium equations.
To implement the ALE approach, beside the usual pro-
 cedures in incremental plasticity problems such as stress
@dt sij t
dV integration, two special procedures are needed at the end of
@ t xk each increment; one for the extrapolation of material-asso-
ciated properties and the other for specifying the expected
dV
motion for each degree of freedom of the mesh in the next
 incremental step.
@dt sij t
dS After the solution has converged in an incremental step,
@ xk
the positions of nodal points are updated in such a way that
the material and grid points coincide at the start of the next
step. This requires that the properties of the material nodal
points such as stresses, strains, and reaction forces are
mapped to the new nodal positions. Instead of geometric
extrapolation, as the common approach in previous Eulerian
formulations, a rearranged form of Eq. (2) is used for
transformation:
df
Df ˆ Df ‡ …u ÿ u†
(5)
dx
where u and u stand for material and grid displacements,
respectively. This equation ensures consistency of the ALE
procedure. For the mesh-motion scheme, the objective has
been set to retain the regularity of the mesh throughout the
analysis. The trans®nite method for mesh generation has
been modi®ed to account for the boundary motions of a
patch of elements, and is applied at the end of each incre-
ment to ®nd the positions of nodal points in the next step.
This method reproduces the boundary nodes exactly, and
only the internal nodes of a patch are adjusted. Alternatively,
an approach based on isoparametric mapping may be used
(4) that can handle patches with varying element density [22].
4. Simulation example
In this section, how the ¯exibility of the ALE approach
can be used to create more ef®cient simulation for metal
cutting processes is explained. The idea is to use features of
the Eulerian approach in an area close to the tool tip, whilst
simultaneously taking advantage of features of the Lagran-
gian approach in modeling unconstrained ¯ow of the mate-
rial on the free boundaries, which de®nes the shape and size
of the chip. To achieve this, a start is made by assuming an
initial chip size, but it should be noted that this assumption is
not an inherent requirement of the ALE; by designing a more
sophisticated mesh-motion scheme, all stages of the process
can be modeled. An initial chip geometry is assumed here as
a matter of convenience, because it considerably simpli®es
the mesh-motion scheme, and because the steady-state of the
cutting process is of interest. During the analysis, part of the
mesh is Eulerian (®xed in space), whilst the motion on free
boundaries is of Lagrangian nature, i.e. it follows the
material deformation. The rest of the domain possesses a
 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275
Fig. 4. Mesh-motion scheme in ALE cutting analysis.
general ALE motion, and moves within an incremental step
at a speed determined by the mesh-motion scheme. To avoid
entanglement of nodes on Lagrangian boundaries, the posi-
tions of these nodes are also adjusted tangential to the
boundary, as this does not violate Eq. (1). In other words,
the nodes on the boundaries are Lagrangian in the normal
direction and ALE in the tangential direction. The capabil-
ities of ALE formulation are demonstrated in the example
that follows. It should be noted that the present purpose is
only to demonstrate these capabilities and a thorough cutting
analysis is not intended.
An elasto-plastic analysis with linear strain-hardening is
performed on a material with a Young's modulus of 200 GPa
and an initial yield stress of 414 MPa. The strain-hardening
modulus is chosen to be 1 GPa. The strain rate and tem-
perature effects on material properties are neglected in this
analysis. Fig. 4 shows the initial con®guration of the ®nite-
element model as well as the con®guration when the cutting
process has reached steady state. It can be seen that the nodal
273
positions in the central region of the model and in the
neighborhood of the tool remain ®xed throughout the ana-
lysis (the Eulerian region). Displacement boundary condi-
tions are applied on the left and bottom sides of the model,
which advance the workpiece towards the stationary tool.
The tool is assumed to be rigid, with a rake angle of 108, a
nose radius of 0.025 mm, and a cutting a depth of 0.25 mm.
The model consists of about 1000 linear triangular elements,
and a total movement of 1.5 mm is simulated in 1000
incremental steps.
The mesh-motion design in this simulation is shown in
Fig. 4. It can be seen that as the material advances towards
the tool, the area between the left boundary and the ®xed
area becomes smaller, whilst the area between the ®xed area
and the right boundary becomes larger. The motion of the
nodal points in these regions is designed in such a way that
the elements in these areas retain their regular shape. Also,
the chip length increases steadily during the analysis, this
being achieved by expanding the elements at the chip tail.
274 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275

Fig. 5. Contours of effective stress in the primary and secondary deformation zone.

Again, the mesh-motion scheme retains the mesh regularity

and the elements are distributed evenly in the shear defor-
mation zone as well as in the chip tail. It should be noted that
the nodes on free boundaries are free in the direction normal
to the boundary at any point. Fig. 5 shows the formation of
the chip after 0.05, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mm of tool advance into
the material. It can be seen that the chip is formed steadily. It
is also noted that the thickness and the shape of the chip are
developed in a natural unconstrained fashion, not affected by
the assumed initial shape of the chip; the chip adjusts its
thickness automatically, and without any need for the itera-
tive adjustment performed in a similar Eulerian analysis.
Fig. 5 also shows the contours of effective stress in the
cutting zone. The chip-formation process, the primary and
secondary deformation zones, the stress patterns around the
tool tip and the chip curling, are all apparent in this ®gure.
The area at the tail of the chip corresponds to the assumed
initial chip. Finally, the ¯ow of the material within the
workpiece and the chip is shown in Fig. 6, where the velocity
vectors are plotted. The velocity vectors around the tool tip Fig. 6. Velocity vectors in the ALE cutting analysis.
 M. Movahhedy et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 267±275
clearly show the plastic ¯ow of the material around the nose.
Overall, the stress- and strain-distributions and the chip
geometry agree qualitatively with experimental and numer-
ical analyses reported in the literature.
5. Conclusions
An ALE ®nite-element formulation is described and then
employed to model the metal cutting process. It is shown
that both the Lagrangian and Eulerian analyses suffer from
shortcomings in modeling this process, and that the strength
of both methods can be combined to achieve a more ef®cient
cutting simulation. The features of an ALE analysis of
cutting process are as follows:
1. No node-separation criterion is necessary, and no
change in mesh topology is needed.
2. The density of the mesh around the tool tip need not be
very high, and thus the process is computationally
ef®cient.
3. The chip formation occurs by continuous plastic ¯ow of
the material around the tool.
4. The shape and the thickness of the chip are developed
automatically in the process and there is no need for
iterative adjustment of the boundaries.
5. Frequent remeshing and data interpolation are avoided,
as the mesh motion becomes part of the solution
procedure. The computational intensity of the solution is
not affected, however, as the supplementary constraint
equations are treated on the element level [21].
An example has been presented to demonstrate the cap-
abilities of the ALE approach. Further work is still under
way to improve the performance of the approach in the
simulation of metal cutting processes; the results of full scale
and thorough analyses of the cutting process are to be
presented in forthcoming publications.
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