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.

Improved method for hydroforming an aluminum tubular blank

Abstract: A method of hydroforming a tubular aluminum alloy blank (T) into a desired configuration, including providing a tubular blank having opposing longitudinal end portions; rapidly heating the blank to an elevated temperature for a brief period of time, the values of the elevated temperature and the brief period of time being selected such that, after the rapid heating, the blank has a reduced hardness below an initial hardness without otherwise significantly changing the microstructure of the blank; quencing the blank while the blank is at or near the elevated temperature; disposing the quenched blank in a die cavity of a hydroforming die (102, 104), the hydroforming die having interior surfaces (106, 108) that provide the die cavity with a shape corresponding to the desired configuration of the tubular blank; sealing the opposing longitudinal end portions of the tubular blank; supplying pressurized fluid to the hollow interior of the tubular blank and relatively forcing the opposing end portions of the tubular blank inwardly toward one another such that the pressurized fluid diametrically expands the temporarily softened portions of the tubular blank such that the temporarily softened aluminum alloy of the blank is caused to flow longitudinally along the blank.

An Investigation of Wrinkling and Thinning in Hydroforming Deep Drawing Process with Hemispherical Punch

Abstract: In this paper, the effect of hydrostatic pressure on wrinkling phenomenon in the HDD process of hemispherical cups with material AL6111-T4 has been numerically investigated. The simulation results are in excellent agreement with the experimental results obtained from the work of Abedrabbo et al., (1) . ABAQUS/Explicit was used for simulations of processes, and failure criteria used in the analysis were based on forming limit diagrams (FLDs). Furthermore, Hill's anisotropic material model implemented in ABAQUS/Explicit was used. The results showed that hydrostatic pressure causes the sheet to stretch in the flange area, and this external support provides a compressive stress that delays the onset of tensile instabilities and reduces the formation of wrinkles due to tensile frictional forces. In the second section of this paper, the effect of maximum counter pressure profile on the thinning distribution in HDD process has been studied numerically. Results of this work showed that minimum thinning can be obtained by using a maximum counter pressure profile of 17 Mpa. When the pressure exceeds this limit, rupturing will occur.

Numerical simulation of tube hydroforming : adaptive loading paths

Abstract: The tube hydroforming process is still to be considered a new and advanced technique. The process has been adopted into several industries, e.g. automotive and aero. A tube that has been cut to app ...