Study on bulging behavior of rotating cylinder compression forming based on upper bound method and experiment

Abstract

Rotating cylinder compression forming results in a lower compression force than traditional cylinder compression forming. However, friction-induced power losses and bulging deformation are nevertheless unavoidable. Accordingly, the present study proposes a hybrid method comprising the Upper Bound Method (UBM) and an elliptical curve-fitting technique to predict both the rotating compression force and the bulge profile. It is shown that the predicted results for the rotating compression force are in good agreement with the experimental results and those obtained from Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations and Slab Method (SM) analysis. In addition, the predicted bulge profiles of the compressed cylinders are in good qualitative agreement with the experimental profiles. Overall, the results show that the proposed method provides a low-cost and computationally straightforward means of estimating the compression force and bulge profile in rotating cylinder compression forming.