Numerical Analysis of Electrodeposited Nickel Coating in Multistage Drawing Processes

Abstract

The elastic-plastic finite element method of a dynamic explicit algorithm was used to simulate the deep drawing processes of nickel coating electrodeposited on a steel substrate to form an advanced battery shell. The Belytschko-Wong-Chiang shell element was used to mesh the materials, the kinematical work-hardening model was adopted for the components, and the tied-with-failure contact criterion was given to the interfacial combination. The rate-type elastic-plastic constitute law was employed to handle the large deformation, and the central difference method was utilized to solve the finite element equations. The simulations of the materials in the first and final processes illustrated that the steel substrate and the nickel coating were simultaneously deformed and yielded in the die fillet profile and the flange area. The thickness variation of the nickel coating and steel substrate was dependent on the main principal stress, and their variation rule was consistent. In the entire drawing processes, the thinnest region after forming was at the lower part of the cup near the cup bottom, the extent of the coating being thinned after drawing was acceptable, and the material was capable of forming the battery shell. The simulated results were partly compared with tests and other analysis and showed good agreement.