Abstract
It is necessary to fabricate individual dies in conventional hydroforming, to produce different tubular parts. This procedure is costly and time-consuming. Tube multi-point hydroforming is a new flexible forming technology which facilitates producing various tubular products by only one die. In this study, a new reconfigurable hydroforming die was designed and fabricated. The main difference of this die with conventional types is substitution of the rigid surface with a set of spaced pins. Different tubular sections could be produced by adjusting the pins position. Due to the low cost of changing the tool into a new die, this process is appropriate for producing small batch numbers of a tubular product. Numerical simulations were employed to determine the effects of pin diameter and polyurethane layer thickness on the characteristics of final products. Increasing the number of pins was found out to improve dimensional accuracy and surface quality. On the other hand, while using a thicker polyurethane layer reduced dimpling, it led to a poor dimensional accuracy. A bulged and a square brass 70/30 tube were produced with an initial thickness of 2 mm. Thereafter, experimental tests were performed to compare distribution of the thickness and variation of dimensions with the numerical results.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Rama SC, Ma K, Smith LM, Zhang JM (2003) A two-dimensional approach for simulation of hydroforming expansion of tubular cross-sections without axial feed. J Mater Process Technol 141(3):420–430
Elyasi M, Bakhshi-Jooybari M, Gorji AH (2010) A new hydro forming die design for improvement of die corner filling of stepped tubes. Modares Mech Eng 10(3):87–98
Eftekhari SE, Khalili K, Ahmadi BY (2014) Optimization of loading curve in tube hydroforming process using multi-level response surface method. Modares Mech Eng 14(5):63–72
Seyedkashi SMH, Moon YH (2013) Numerical and experimental study on the effects of expansion ratio, corner fillets and strain rate in warm hydroforming of aluminum tubes. Modares Mech Eng 12(5):122–131
Joghan HD, Staupendahl D, Hassan H, Henke A, Keesser T, Legat F, Tekkaya AE (2018) Investigation of the effects of process and geometrical parameters on formability in tube hydroforming using a modular hydroforming tool. In: AIP conference proceedings, vol 1960(1). AIP Publishing, p 150002
Hardt DE, Webb RD, Suh NP (1982) Sheet metal die forming using closed-loop shape control. CIRP Ann 31(1):165–169
Walczyk DF, Lakshmikanthan J, Kirk DR (1998) Development of a reconfigurable tool for forming aircraft body panels. J Manuf Syst 17(4):287–296
Zhang Q, Dean TA, Wang ZR (2006) Numerical simulation of deformation in multi-point sandwich forming. Int J Mach Tools Manuf 46(7–8):699–707
Li L, Seo YH, Heo SC, Kang BS, Kim J (2010) Numerical simulations on reducing the unloading springback with multi-step multi-point forming technology. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 48(1–4):45–61
Zareh B, Vafaei-Sefat A, Rikhtegar-Nezami V (2013) Experimental and numerical investigation of sheet metal forming using multi-point forming process. Aerosp Mech J 8(4):75–87
Selmi N, BelHadjSalah H (2017) Ability of the flexible hydroforming using segmented tool. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 89(5–8):1431–1442
Boudhaouia S, Gahbiche MA, Giraud E, Salem WB, Santo PD (2016) Investigation of a hybrid process: multipoint incremental forming. World Acad Sci Eng Technol Int J Mech Aerosp Ind Mechatron Manuf Eng 10(10):1755–1759
Abebe M, Park JW, Kang BS (2017) Reliability-based robust process optimization of multi-point dieless forming for product defect reduction. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 89(1–4):1223–1234
Wang S, Cai Z, Li M (2010) Numerical investigation of the influence of punch element in multi-point stretch forming process. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 49(5–8):475–483
Xu N, Ueji R, Fujii H (2014) Enhanced mechanical properties of 70/30 brass joint by rapid cooling friction stir welding. Mater Sci Eng A 610:132–138
İpekoğlu G, Küçükömeroğlu T, Aktarer SM, Sekban DM, Çam G (2019) Investigation of microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir welded dissimilar St37/St52 joints. Mater Res Express 6(4):046537
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Alavizadeh, S.M., Shahbazi Karami, J. Experimental and numerical investigation on metal tubes forming with a novel reconfigurable hydroforming die based on multi-point forming. Prod. Eng. Res. Devel. 13, 489–500 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11740-019-00903-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11740-019-00903-5