Aiming at the urgent demands for precise and intelligent forming of complex bent tubular components, this paper reviews the developments of tube bending related simulation technologies. Combined with the advantages of finite element (FE) simulation analysis and geometry motion simulation analysis, the present work is proposed to establish a knowledge base of tube bending simulation based on the knowledge engineering technology, and to develop an interference simulation system of tube bending based on CATIA software. Through the application of interference simulation system in continuous tube multi-bending in civil aircrafts, the extraction of model data, selection of process parameters, FE simulation of single bending segment, geometry simulation of continuous multi-bending, generation of simulation reports and numerical control codes can be automatically realized, and the bending quality and interference situation can be simultaneously obtained. Using the interference simulation system, the product efficiency of aircraft duct components can be greatly improved, and the labour cost and working intensity of technicians can be significantly reduced.