• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
• /
• 2006.06a
• /
• pp.11-11
• /
• 2006

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
• /
• 2008.10a
• /
• pp.26-29
• /
• 2008

Recently, the hydroforming of high strength aluminum tubes has many studies and applications in manufacturing industry, especially in automotive industry. But high strength aluminum tube has limited expansion capability at most 15% at normal temperature. New manufacturing process, called hot air forming, is introduced to apply aluminum tube to the automotive sub frame components which have complex shape and require high expansion ratio about 40%. The process is carried out at the elevated temperature above $500^{\circ}C$, so numerous material properties and process parameters related to high temperature should be investigated and determined to get a sound product. In this paper, the hot air forming process of automotive sub frame was investigated. The effect of the forming parameters such as the temperature of tool, axial feeding and gas pressure are analyzes by using explicit finite element method.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.77-82
• /
• 2012

It is well known that the targeted fuel efficiency could only be achieved by more than 40% reduction of the vehicle weight through improved design and extensive utilization of lightweight materials. In order to obtain the goal of the weight reduction of automobiles, the researches about lighter and stronger rear sub-frame have been studied without sacrificing the safety of rear sub-frame. In this study, the weight reduction design process of rear sub-frame could be proposed based on the variation of von-Mises stress contour by substituting an AA6061 (aluminum 6061 alloy) having tensile strength of 310 MPa grade instead of SAPH440 steels. In addition, the stress ratio variations (stress over fatigue limit) of the rear sub-frame were examined and compared carefully. It could be reached that this approach method could be well established and be contributed for light-weight design guide and the optimum design conditions of the automotive rear sub-frame development.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.45-49
• /
• 2010

The automotive industry has shown a growing interest in tube hydroforming during the past years. The advantages of hydroforming (less thinning, a more efficient manufacturing process, etc.) can, for instance, be combined with the high strength of extra high strength steels, which are usually less formable, to produce structural automotive components which exhibit lower weight and improved service performance. Design and production of tubular components require knowledge about tube material and forming behavior during hydroforming and how the hydroforming operation itself should be controlled. These issues are studied analytically in the present paper. In this study, the whole process of rear sub-frame parts development by tube hydroforming using AA6061 material is presented. At the part design stage, it requires feasibility study and process design aided by CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) to confirm hydroformability in details. Effects of parameters such as internal pressure, axial feeding and geometry shape in automotive rear sub-frame by hydroforming process were carefully investigated. Overall possibility of hydroformable rear sub-frame parts could be examined by cross sectional analyses. Moreover, it is essential to ensure the formability of tube material on every forming step such as pre-bending and hydroforming. In addition, all the components of prototyping tool are designed and interference with press is examined from the point of geometry and thinning.