A Study on Warm Hydroforming of Al and Mg Sheet Materials: Mechanism and Proper Temperature Conditions

Abstract

Hydroforming of lightweight materials at elevated temperature is a relatively new process with promises of increased formability at low internal pressure levels. In this study, the mechanism of warm hydroforming processes is presented in terms of its formability by comparison with warm forming, and cold hydroforming processes. Additionally, a strategy is proposed to control process parameters, such as temperature, hydraulic pressure, blank holder force, and forming speed. As a part of this strategy, the proper temperature condition is determined by adaptive-isothermal finite element analysis (FEA) and a design of experiment (DOE) approach. The adaptive-isothermal FEA determines the temperature levels of the blank material, which is selectively heated, by checking position of the blank material and adopting temperature level of the neighboring tooling. The proposed adaptive-isothermal FEA/DOE approach leads to the optimal temperature condition in a warm hydroforming system accurately and rapidly as opposed to costly and lengthy experimental trial and errors and/or fully coupled thermo-mechanical simulations. Other process parameters are also optimized in a continued study (Choi et al., 2007, “Determination of Optimal Loading Profiles in Warm Hydroforming of Lightweight Materials,” J. Mater. Process. Techn., 190(1–3), pp. 230–242.).