Theoretical, Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Tube-Hydroforming in Triangular Die

A major parameter that affects dimensional accuracy of a tube-hydroformed part is formation of an edge corner with a desired radius. In addition, required forming pressure produce the desired part is a function of outer corner radius of formed tube. In this paper, the forming pressure is investigated with a theoretical model, a finite-element model and an experimental set-up. To reach this goal, first a theoretical method has beenpresented to obtain forming pressure, the corner radius and initial thickness of the part effect. Then, using ABAQUS/explicit the 3D finite-element model of the forming process has been analyzed. In finite-element model, the effect of forming pressure on the corner radius was obtained for different values of pressure. In order to validate results of models, an experimental investigation has been done using a triangular die. The predicted results calculated by both the theoretical model and the finite-element simulation were found to agree well with those obtained from experimentalanalysis.

Keywords:

Tube-hydroforming , forming pressure , corner radius , triangular die