Spring-back deformation in tube bending

Abstract

The spring-back of a bending metal tube was studied through extensive experiments and finite element method (FEM) analysis. An approximate equation for the spring-back angle of bending was deduced. It is noted that the mechanical properties of the material (in a tubular form) are quite different from those found in the standard tensile tests (when the materials are in bar forms). This is one of the major reasons that result in the discrepancies in the outcomes of experimental study, FEM calculations, and spring-back analysis. It is therefore of crucial importance to study the mechanical properties of the materials in their tubular forms. The experiments and FEM simulations prove that the spring-back angle is significantly affected by the mechanical properties of the materials. The angle decreases accordingly with plastic modulus, but changes inversely with the hardening index and elastic modulus. The spring-back angle is also affected by the conditions of tube deformation: it increases accordingly with the relative bending radius but changes inversely with the relative wall thickness. In addition, the spring-back angle increases nonlinearly with the bending angle.