Modelling of guillotine cutting of multi-layered aluminum sheets

The paper presents a numerical modelling of the guillotine cutting process of sheet aluminum bundles. A finite element method with a smoothed particle hydrodynamics approach were coupled to simulate the cutting process. Moreover, arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation was also proposed and applied to model the process. Experimental results of the cutting were presented for the validation purposes. The measured force characteristics in all numerical simulations and experiment were compared. The computational costs of the implemented methods were also analyzed. Additionally, a mesh (particles) sensitivity study was performed, and the influence of the mesh on the obtained results was assessed. Based on the outcomes the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian model was selected as more suitable method of modelling the guillotine cutting process and it was validated in different cutting conditions and the influence of technological parameters such as knife velocity and cutting-edge angle was investigated.