Blank design and process planning are two key steps in the development of sheet metal
forming technology. In this paper we
present a finite element method (FEM) which is based on
ideal forming theory and related to those two steps. In ideal homogeneous forming theory, material elements are assumed to deform along the minimum
plastic work path. In our study, different elastic plastic constitutive relations with hardening have been integrated into the ideal homogeneous forming theory for modeling different materials. The ideal blank shape and intermediate shapes are solved by optimizing the global plastic work, assuming that all material elements deform in minimum plastic work paths, using a relevant FEM code. The blank shape of an axisymmetric cup of an almost isotropic 08AlM steel sheet has been calculated by the FEM code for demonstrating the validity of the method proposed. The results are in very good agreement with experimental data. They show that our method is more effective than BEM.