Hydroforming of automotive structural components with rectangular-sections

Abstract

An experimental and numerical simulation was conducted to investigate hydroforming of automotive rectangular-section structural components and the results were used as guidelines for some prototypes. The effect of loading path on the failures and thickness distribution was discussed and the reasons were analyzed for the failures, such as bursting and folding. Hydroforming with axial feeding is strongly sensitive to the loading path. Bursting occurs in transition zone in the calibration when the internal pressure increases faster than the axial feeding. Otherwise, folding will take place due to too much axial feeding. There is the maximum thickness at central point of the side of cross-section and the minimum thickness at the transition area. If the n value of the tube material is bigger, the thickness of the final part will be more uniform. By using a petal-like perform section shape, the pressure for forming the transition radii was greatly reduced and components with small radii can be formed with relatively low pressure.