Recent and future developments in finite element metal forming simulation

After more than 40 years of development, finite element metal forming simulation has reached a high level of maturity. After a short mechanical and thermal introduction, the main scientific and technical developments are briefly described. We consider numerical issues, such as adaptive remeshing or parallel computing coupling phenomena for a more realistic simulation, such as thermal and metallurgical coupling, with a special emphasis on modeling of microstructure evolution, the use of optimization for forming processes or for parameters identification. Finally the main potential future research fields for the next 10 years are outlined: process stability and stochastic approaches, more effective massively parallel computing and extension of the application to generate the whole “virtual factory”.