• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.32-37
• /
• 2010

Hydroforming has attracted a great deal of attention in the manufacturing industries for vehicles and transportation systems. Hydroforming technology contributes to weight reduction, increased strength, improved quality and reduced tooling cost. Hydroformed automotive parts used as structure components in vehichle body frame often have to be structurally joined at some point. Therefore it is useful if the hydroformed automotive parts can be given a localized attachment flange. For a given flange shape, a parting plane for the dies is established relative to which the various surfaces of the flange shape, in cross section, have no significant reverse curvature. In this study, hydroforming process for flange forming was proposed. FE analysis to form flanged circular shape and flanged rectangular shape was preformed with Dynaform 5.5. To accomplish successful hydroforming process design, thorough investigation on proper combination of process parameters such as tool geometry and hydraulic pressure has been performed and optimized. The results show that flanged automotive parts can be successfully produced with tube hydroforming.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
• /
• 2001.05a
• /
• pp.36-39
• /
• 2001

Tubular hydroforming has attracted increased attention in the automotive industry recently. In this study, a professional finite element program for analysis and design of tube hydroforming processes has been developed, called HydroFORM-3D, which is based on a rigid-plastic model. With the developed program several hydroforming processes such as a tee extrusion, an automotive rear axle housing and lower arm are analyzed and designed. And also, the Oyane's ductile fracture integral I was calculated from the histories of stress and strain according to every element and then the forming limit of the hydroforming process could be evaluated. The pediction of the bursting failure and the plastic deformation during typical hydroforming processes shows to be reasonable so that this approach can be extended to other various tube hydroforming processes.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.302-311
• /
• 2002

A generalized numerical approach based on the finite element method to analysis and design of hydroforming process is proposed in this paper. The special attention is focused on comparison of an implicit and an explicit finite element method widely used for hydroforming simulation. Furthermore, in order to meet the increasing real needs for prediction of forming limit, a ductile fracture criterion combined with finite element method is introduced and then applied to hydroforming process of an automobile lower m Consequently, the numerical analysis and design for hydroforming process presented here will facilitate the development and application of the tube hydrofoniung process to a new level.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 1992.10a
• /
• pp.607-612
• /
• 1992

For hydroforming process, determination of back-up fluid pressure in chamber is one of the most essential tasks. In this paper, we present a back-up pressure estimation system which estimates the back-up pressure of hydroforming process utilizing a multi-layered neural network. The neural network learns the nonlinear relation ship between the back-up pressure and the geometric state variables of hydroforming process. The proposed method does not necessitate sophisticated analysis on hydroforming process but some geometric intuition. The experimental results show that the neural network well approximates the nonlinear relationship between the back-up pressure and the geometric state variables of hydroforming process, thus giving the good estimation of back-up pressure vs punch stroke curve.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.644-652
• /
• 2000

Tube hydroforming is recently drawing attention of automotive industries due to its several advantages over conventional methods. It can produce wide range of products such as subframes, engine cradles, and exhaust manifolds with cheaper production cost by reducing overall number of processes. h successful tube hydroforming depends on the reasonable combination of the internal pressure and axial load at the tube ends. This paper deals with the optimal process design of hydroforming process using the genetic algorithm and neural network. An optimization technique is used in order to minimize the tube thickness variation by determining the optimal loading path in the tube expansion forming and the tube T-shape forming process.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.12 no.8
• /
• pp.702-709
• /
• 2003

In the automotive industry hydroforming of sheet metal pairs have received special attention because materials for various sheet metal components of vehicles have changed into the high strength steel, aluminum, and titanium blank having low formability. Uniform deformation over the whole region is a main advantage in the sheet hydroforming process. Because upper and lower parts could be produced simultaneously with one tool, hydroforming of sheet metal pairs is competitive in reducing the lead-time and development cost. In this paper, the multi-stage hydroforming process of sheet pair is proposed in order to increase the formability of a structural part like the oil pan shape. The upper die for forming oil pan shape is divided into two parts which can move separately. By the finite element simulation, the design parameters such as geometry of the tool and detailed specification of hydraulic pump were calculated and verified. For the strict comparison of the proposed process, the blank holding force is kept to a constant value during deformation by hydraulic valve. The deformed shape and strain distribution of the manufactured parts with the proposed process are compared with the results of simulation. In the multi-stage hydroforming process, maximum thickness strain was improved by more than 30 percent.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
• /
• 2006.05a
• /
• pp.269-272
• /
• 2006

The hydroforming processing is a relatively new technology in comparison with conventional stamping process. The hydroforming processing makes torsion beam in rear suspension of automobile. The durability of torsion beam is very important characteristic that operate in an automobile. In order to optimize the hydroforming process and satisfy the durability, the hydroforming simulation which could control an axial compression and high internal pressure with computer simulation has to be operated. This paper is about an optimum design to improve the kinematic and compliance characteristics of a torsion-beam of suspension system. The result from finite element analysis shows that the forming and the durability are optimized. If there is effect of First pressure in hydroforming processing that gap is in the die tool, the prototype of tube is not satisfied on the durability test.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.22-28
• /
• 2000

By using the finite element method, the Oyane's ductile fracture integral I was calculated from the histories of stress and strain according to every element and then the forming limit of hydroforming process could be evaluated. The fracture initiation site and the forming limit for two typical hydroforming processes, tee extrusion and bumper rail under different forming conditions are predicted in this study. For tee extrusion hydroforming process, the pressure level has significant influence on the forming limit. When the expansion area is backed by a supporter and bulged, the process would be more stable and the possibility of bursting failure is reduced. For bumper rail, the ductile fracture integral i is not only affected by the process parameters, but also by the shape of preforming blank. Due to no axial feeding on the end side of the blank, the possibility of cracking in hydroforming of the bumper rail is influenced by the friction condition more strongly than that of the tee extrusion. All the simulation results show reasonable plastic deformation, and the applications of the method could be extended to a wide range of hydroforming processes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
• /
• 2001.05a
• /
• pp.49-53
• /
• 2001

Recently hydroforming process became a process which is increasingly applied in the automotive industry. As the hydroforming process is a new technology, there is no abundant data to assist manufacturing the products. To investigate the effects of process parameters on the tube hydroforming process, simple bulging, circular bulging and Tee-fitting tests are performed. The optimal leading path to escape the failure modes(bursting, wrinkling) is determined and the effects of the process parameters, the internal pressure and axial feeding on the product quality, such as thickness distribution, forming height and branch dome shape are investigated.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.275-279
• /
• 2013

The tube hydroforming process has received much attention in the automotive industry because of its advantages compared to conventional manufacturing technologies. A wide range of products such as sub-frames, camshafts, radiator frames, axles and crankshafts are made by hydroforming process. The hydroformed parts often need to be structurally joined to other components during assembly. Therefore, these automotive parts need to be manufactured with a localized attachment flange. In this study, FE forming analyses of a part with a rectangular flanged shape was performed with Dynaform 5.5. Using the optimized conditions determined numerically, hydroforming experiments were performed. Then, the characterization of defects was analyzed. Finally, the accuracy of the optimized internal pressure condition as well as that of the initial ram position were evaluated. The results demonstrated that flanged parts can be successfully produced using the tube hydroforming process.