Abstract
The pipe with a long-neck flange is widely used in power plants, chemical plants, and shipbuilding companies. Now the pipe with a long-neck flange is manufactured by welding a thick flange to a pipe. But this long-neck flange pipe has some defects in the welding region such as unfitting and local thermal fatigue, which weaken the strength around the neck of the flange. Moreover, after welding the flange, the contacting surfaces of the flange have to be machined flat. So, that is uneconomical. Therefore, to solve the above problems of the long-neck flange pipe, a new process, which has no defects around the flange neck, is required. In this study, three forming processes are suggested to get an enhanced long-neck flange. First suggested process consists of conical forming and flange forming. Second and third suggested processes consist of the bulging of a long pipe locally heated by induction coils and the flange forming. The differences between second and third suggestions are the thickness and local heating area of the pipe. That is, the thickness of the initial pipe of third suggestion is larger than that of the final product, and the local heating area is smaller than that of second suggestion. These three suggestions for forming a long-neck flange are simulated by FE analyses with a commercial code DEFORM 2D. Especially, the theoretical result of FE analysis on the first suggestion for forming a long-neck flange is verified by the experiment with aluminum 6063 pipes. From the theoretical and experimental results, it is concluded that three suggested processes are very useful in order to manufacture the pipe with a long-neck flange without any defects.
