Abstract: Sheet metal forming is widely applied to automobile, aviation, space flight, ship, instrument, and appliance industries. In this paper, based on analyzing the shortcoming of general finite element analysis (FEA), the conception of parametric finite element analysis (PFEA) is presented. The parametric finite element analysis, artificial neural networks (ANN) and genetic algorithm (GA) are combined to research thoroughly on the problems of process parameters optimization of sheet metal forming. The author programs the optimization scheme and applies it in a research of optimization problem of inside square hole flanging technological parameters. The optimization result coincides well with the result of experiment. The research shows that the optimization scheme offers a good new way in die design and sheet metal forming field.

Key words: Sheet metal forming, Optimization, Parametric finite element analysis, Artificial neural network