Hydroforming

About: Hydroforming is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2796 publications have been published within this topic receiving 26293 citations. The topic is also known as: Bulge forming.

Hydroformed hose fittings and related hose assemblies

Abstract: A system and method for hydroforming hose fittings for use with hose assemblies. Hose fittings of hydroformed metal provide variuos structural, performance and manufacturing benefits.

Numerical and experimental studies on thin-walled aluminum alloy tube hydroforming using differential lubrication method

Abstract: In this paper, it was analyzed that the friction forces that affected the material flow were influenced by the friction coefficient and the load path of internal pressure and feeding in T-shaped tube hydroforming process. Therefore, a novel differential lubrication method was proposed to adjust the material flow through changing the friction coefficient in the asymmetric zone in the T-shaped tube besides the loading path design method. The differential lubrication zones in T-shaped tube were divided, and a method called intermediate semiring differential lubrication was designed. The effects of differential lubrication and traditional uniform lubrication methods on the wrinkle, height of branch tube and wall thickness distribution of the T-tube were investigated under the same loading path of internal pressure and axial feeding. Meanwhile, the differential lubrication methods were also simulated under the different loading paths of the internal pressure and axial feeding. The differential lubrication experiments of T-shaped tubes hydroforming were carried out with fluorosilicone grease and PEFT film as lubrication medium. The simulation and experimental results showed that the differential lubrication method more effectively avoided wrinkles in the back zone of the main tube, increased the height of branch tube and weakened the thickening than the traditional uniform lubrication method. And it was a promising way to improve the formability of T-shaped tube hydroforming and reduced the over-reliance on the loading path.

Manufacturing of a wire-reinforced aluminum tube via hydroforming process

Abstract: Aluminum composites have been widely used in a variety of applications requiring high strength levels and low weights. This paper proposes an innovative hydroforming process for the manufacturing of wire-reinforced aluminum tubes. To characterize the proposed hydroforming process for the manufacturing of wire-reinforced tubes (WRTs), a finite element (FE) analysis was conducted with various combinations of wires. The reinforcement effects of the WRT were verified according to the number of reinforcing wires and their diameters. Based on the equivalent plastic strain and tube wall thickness values of the inner tube as derived via the FE analysis, appropriate loading paths for hydroforming experiments were derived according to various combinations of reinforcing wires. Through hydroforming experiments, WRTs without process-induced defects such as insufficient bulging, wire buckling, and tube bursting were successfully obtained. To estimate the mechanical performance of the WRT when under a load, the structural strength was experimentally evaluated through a lateral three-point bending test. The measured structural strength values demonstrate the superior reliability and applicability of the WRT manufactured in this study.