Application of innovation theory to metal forming modelling: FEM sunset and AI dawn??

Abstract The paper derives from a simple question that the authors have asked themselves when attending conferences and reading articles on modelling of metal forming processes: is numerical modelling based on FEA still innovative? Are the proposed results able to provide a further effective enhancement to scientific knowledge? And how huge was the effort to obtain such an eventual enhancement? Starting with these questions, the authors applied some basic concepts of Innovation Theory to the last forty years of numerical modelling of forming processes and understood that this technology has reached its natural limit: only small enhancements of modelling performances are obtained despite quite big efforts. Also, research topic trends analysis was performed within ESAFORM community through text mining approaches. Now, to answer the research questions still open, a disruptive discontinuity is necessary, aimed at assessing a new master modelling technology.