Formability Of Tube Hydroforming Research Articles

Experimental and numerical investigation of the influence of pulsating pressure on hot tube gas forming using oscillating heating

Hot metal gas forming is a modern metal forming process which is generally utilized to manufacture automotive parts with complex shape and light-weight materials such as aluminum-magnesium alloys. One of the critical parameters in this approach is controlling the internal pressure of the tube during the hot forming process. The improvement of formability in tube hydroforming by utilizing pulsating pressure paths has been confirmed in the last few years. In this paper, the effect of the pulsating pressure on the hot tube gas bulging process has been investigated by experimental and numerical methods. In addition, an oscillating heating mechanism was used to provide a uniform temperature distribution along the tube. A novel, simple pneumatic system was designed and used to provide pressure paths. Moreover, the finite element simulation of hot tube gas bulging was carried out to investigate the effect of different parameters of pulsating pressure on tube formability and thickness distribution. The simulation and experimental results showed that the proposed pulsating pressure path improved formability and thickness distribution along the tube in the hot metal tube gas bulging process. It was also concluded that the axial feeding intensifies the effect of pulsating pressure on formability and it should be applied right after the start of the plastic deformation of the tube.

Effect of bright annealing on stainless steel 304 formability in tube hydroforming

Effects of bright annealing (BA) on enhancing formability of stainless steel 304 tube in a tube hydroforming (THF) process were studied. The tube material was the metastable austenitic stainless steel 304 with an initial thickness of 0.5 mm and an outer diameter of 31.8 mm. Both FEA and experimental results showed that THF process of the investigated part alone failed to achieve desired tube expansion of the diameter of 50.8 mm without severe fracture. Thus, a heat treatment process, also known as bright annealing (BA), which caused little to none oxide on the surface of annealed tube, was considered. Initially, effects of different annealing parameters such as temperature and holding time on the material formability were investigated using tensile tests. Stress–strain responses of various conditions were compared. As a result, an annealing process consisted of heating at the temperature of 1,050 °C, holding for 30 min, and rapidly cooling by purging N2 gas was identified. This annealing should be applied intermediately after a pre-forming step. With the aid of the BA process, tube deformation was significantly increased and the required tube expansion could be therefore attained. In addition, strain-induced martensitic transformation occurred during the forming process was examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) method. The amounts of martensite taking place in tubes (pre-forming, post-forming, and after annealing) were determined and discussed.

Methods of Establishing Forming Limit Diagram of Tube Hydroforming

Forming severity is one of the significant indexes to assess formability of tube hydroforming. The state of strain can be accurately reflected when tube reaches forming limit, mechanical rules during forming processes can be revealed as well by using the forming limit diagram (FLD). By contrast with FLD of sheet metal, the FLD of tube hydroforming is seen as different. In this paper, the importance of FLD of tube hydroforming was discussed briefly; typical methods established to FLD of tube hydroforming were listed and classified; characteristics and insufficiencies of those methods were pointed out; advantages of forming limit stress diagram (FLSD) were introduced simply. Furthermore, the main problem and the trend of development in FLD of tube hydro-forming were summarized.

Investigation of Modified Bi-Layered Tube Hydroforming by Pulsating Pressure

In recent years, tube hydroforming has been applied in automobile and airplane industries, to decrease weight. In general, the determination of internal pressure path is a key factor in improving the formability in tube hydroforming. One of the effective methods in improving the tube hydroforming is using the pulsating internal pressure path. In this research, hydroforming of bi-layered tubes under pulsating pressure in x-shaped die is simulated by means of three dimensional finite element method. Some numerical results were compared with experimental results and show good correlation. Influence of pulsating pressure on the thickness and stress distribution have been also studied. It was shown that pulsating pressure improves the formability in hydroforming of bi-layered tubes via continues and gradual removing returnable wrinkling which is caused by a low pressure in this process. In addition, effect of some key parameters such as friction and die corner filling have been investigated.

A simple experimental tooling with internal pressure source used for evaluation of material formability in tube hydroforming

Material properties have powerful impact on the tube hydroforming (THF) process and the quality of the deformed tube, so it is important to select proper materials and evaluate the material formability prior to conducting the process. A simplified and applied tooling, which has no use for any external hydraulic pressure source but internal one, was designed for charactering the material formability in THF. A pressurized-fluid supplier is automatically established to provide the internal pressure and axial load synchronously required for THF, and the ratio of the two loads is achieved by proper design of the supplier. As a stand-alone hydraulic bulging fixture, the tooling can be worked on a conventional press, even on a single action press. Free bulge forming (FBF), bulge forming with axial loading (BFAL), free and restrained bulge forming (free and fixed ends) can be fulfilled by the tooling, and furthermore, bulge forming with proportional loading to some extend can be realized. Comparative bulge forming experiments under various forming conditions were carried out with the tooling to validate this project and the results suggest that restrained conditions on the tube ends highly affect the FBF, while the ratio of the two loads dominates the BFAL.

Formability of tube hydroforming under various loading paths

Finite-element simulations of the tube hydroforming process with rectangular dies are carried out for various loading paths, and the reasons why the loading paths of the so-called pressure advanced type, in which the hydraulic pressure is raised to a certain magnitude in advance of the axial pushing, are effective to obtain good formability are investigated in detail. It is clarified that, in the early stage of the deformation process by the pressure advanced type, the growth of local wrinkling is prevented and the effect of axial pushing from the tube ends is attained at the whole part in the axial direction. Consequently the desirable biaxial stress condition of the circumferential tensile and longitudinal compressive stresses is obtained in the subsequent stages, thus achieving large expansion without the occurrence of local wrinkling and local thinning.

Improvement of Formability in Tube Hydroforming by Reduction of Friction with a High Viscous Fluid Flow

Tube hydroforming is an advanced technology for the manufacturing of lightweight components with complex shape. The forming results can be usually improved if axial feeding at the tube ends is enabled. For very long parts, however, due to the high friction forces acting at high pressure in the feeding zone between tube and die, no material movement towards the expansion area occurs. The tube is only upset in the feeding zone, no compressive stresses take place in the expansion area and the forming results are not satisfactory. This can be avoided by eliminating friction and by inducing additional tangential stresses in axial direction on the tube surface of the feeding area. This paper presents the investigations performed in this direction by using a high viscous fluid flowing along the internal and external surface of the tube. The flow helps to reduce the friction force and allows the sliding between the tube and the tool surface. Experimental tests of tube upsetting under pressure will show the effects of the medium flow on the thickening of the tube wall. Not only increased sliding and homogeneous thickening will be obtained, but even an increase of the wall thickness in the area close to the expansion zone will be shown. This effect is even stronger when the yield stress in the expansion zone is reduced by means of a previous local heat treatment.

508 静的陽解法 FEM によるチューブハイドロフォーミングシミュレーション

Hammering hydroforming is known as an effective method of improving formability in tube hydroforming. However, the factors that cause the improvement are still unclear. This paper presents finite element simulations of hammering hydroforming of an automotive component by the static explicit FEM code, which was developed in this study. The simulated results were compared with those of experiment and showed a good agreement, and this confirmed the validity of the hammering hydroforming simulation by the developed code. The factors that improve the formability were also investigated by simulation. It was clarified that the effect of axial feeding from the edge on the breakage zone improved and as a result thinning decreased.

A simple experiment to characterize material formability in tube hydroforming

In tube hydroforming processes an internal fluid pressure is utilized to form the material on a properly shaped die; during the process the material axial movement is favoured by the axial feeding of an active punch. In the paper a simple experiment is presented aimed to investigate the influence of the main process variables on material formability. This equipment has enabled an extensive experimental investigation; furthermore a numerical analysis based on the finite element technique has been performed and a ductile fracture criterion has been implemented to predict the insurgence of bursting defects.