Abstract: The meshless Galerkin method is introduced to the analysis of the metal forming processes. The fundamental theories and basic equations for the rigid-plastic meshless method are developed. The releasing of the volume locking encountered in the analysis of the metal plastic forming problems is studied and a releasing algorithm is established by modifying the volumetric strain rate in the functional equation. The volu-metric strain rate calculated according to velocity field is mapped onto a lower-order space to reduce the number of in-dependent discrete constraint equations. The algorithm can release the volumetric locking without the expense of employing large support size in the rigid-plastic meshless method. A typical metal forming problem is analyzed. The results show that the algorithm can effectively release the volumetric locking problem.

Key words: Meshless method, Metal forming, Releasing, Rigid-plastic materials, Volume locking