Improvement of Filling of Die Corners in Box-Shaped Tube Hydroforming by Control of Wrinkling

Abstract

The filling of the die corner in hydroforming of a tube with a box die was improved by controlling wrinkling under oscillation of internal pressure. In this process, a small wrinkle occurs near the die corner in the former stage, and then the wrinkle is eliminated in the latter stage because the flat bulge appears in the former stage due to the oscillation of internal pressure. A hydroforming process of steel tubes with a box die was performed in both three dimensional finite element simulation and experiment. The filling of the die corner for the mean linear pressure was not sufficient due to large wrinkles appearing in the former stage, whereas bursting occurs for the peak linear pressure due to round bulging. On the other hand, the uniformity of wall thickness of the formed tube was improved by the pulsating pressure.