Effect of Elevated Temperatures on the Formability of AA2014 Thin-Walled Tube Ends

Abstract

Thin-walled tubes are used in a number of industrial applications as interconnecting elements, in the pneumatic, hydraulic, and exhaust systems of machines, in the electrical and electronics industry, as connectors in medical devices etc. The end of the tubes should be formed into different shapes that will suit the need of the above mentioned applications. In most of the applications, the tube ends either will be expanded or converged. However, there is a limit to which these tubes are expanded or converged, which depends on the material property as well as the process used. In the present study, an effort has been made to expand tubes of AA2014 aluminum alloy, which is an aerospace alloy containing copper as one of its main constituent. Different heat treatment processes such as solutionizing, aging, and annealing have been done on the preform to enhance its formability. Due to the low ductility of AA2014 alloy, the tube has been expanded at elevated temperatures. Finite element analysis based simulation studies have been performed to minimize the number of experiments. The formability of the tube has been found to improve considerably at the elevated temperatures.