板材零件成对液压成形的分析与试验研究

板材成对液压成形技术是一种新的板材成形技术,具有成形性好、制造工期短、费用低等优点,特别适用于批量小、形状复杂板材零件的生产。本文对板材成对液胀成形技术进行了理论分析和试验研究,介绍了该技术的技术原理和特点,提出了提高其成形极限的措施。结果表明：理论分析结果和实验结果是一致的。     

Technology of sheet hydroforming with a movable female die

An improved sheet hydroforming process is proposed and investigated experimentally and numerically. A movable female die keeps in contact with the deformed area of the sheet blank so that further deformation of the deformed area is restricted. Under the sealing, the sheet blank under the flange can be drawn in. So the hydroformed part has less thinning than the hydrobulge formed part only, and the limit drawing ratio of the sheet can be remarkably improved. This process is especially suitable for forming of small batch production of sheet metal parts with complicated shapes. The female die can be replaced with other female die of various shapes, and can also be made of very cheap materials such as plaster and hard wood instead of metal when the part number is very small. Thus complex-shaped sheet parts can be formed with less expensive tool systems.In this paper, the hydroforming processes of part A (without a movable die) and part B (with a movable die) were investigated by experiment and by elastoplastic FEM. The effects of various process parameters on the deformation of the sheet blanks were investigated. The forming conditions affecting wrinkling and rupture have been analyzed. The effects of friction and contacting force acting on the experimental results are also discussed.     

A simple experimental tooling with internal pressure source used for evaluation of material formability in tube hydroforming

Material properties have powerful impact on the tube hydroforming (THF) process and the quality of the deformed tube, so it is important to select proper materials and evaluate the material formability prior to conducting the process. A simplified and applied tooling, which has no use for any external hydraulic pressure source but internal one, was designed for charactering the material formability in THF. A pressurized-fluid supplier is automatically established to provide the internal pressure and axial load synchronously required for THF, and the ratio of the two loads is achieved by proper design of the supplier. As a stand-alone hydraulic bulging fixture, the tooling can be worked on a conventional press, even on a single action press. Free bulge forming (FBF), bulge forming with axial loading (BFAL), free and restrained bulge forming (free and fixed ends) can be fulfilled by the tooling, and furthermore, bulge forming with proportional loading to some extend can be realized. Comparative bulge forming experiments under various forming conditions were carried out with the tooling to validate this project and the results suggest that restrained conditions on the tube ends highly affect the FBF, while the ratio of the two loads dominates the BFAL.     

Combined tube and double sheet hydroforming for the manufacturing of complex parts

Modern lightweight construction, especially in the automotive industry, requires more and more complex components, which can be manufactured in one process step using the hydroforming technology. The combination of the tube and double sheet hydroforming is a new forming process, where a tube and two blanks are formed simultaneously in a die cavity, combining the advantages of both hydroforming variants. This paper deals with the fundamental considerations and investigations related to connection between tube and double sheet. The finite element analysis and laboratory trials were used in order to design the shape of the die cavity and to avoid wrinkles, material tearing and the collapse of the tube section during forming. The paper will also illustrate an analytical model for the prediction of the edge shape in the constrained bulging of a rectangular cup together with several technical solutions, which enabled a complete forming of the investigated part. Finally, the definition of a hydroforming material factor based on the analytical model of the hydraulic bulging process enables the right choice of sheets with different material strength and thickness for the hydroforming of hybrid components.     

改善5A06-O铝合金板材性能的研究

研究了冷轧加工率、退火温度、保温时间、冷却方式、镁含量等因素对板材组织与性能的影响,确定了5A06铝合金O状态板材的冷轧工艺和热处理制度。按照所确定的工艺制度生产的板材,其性能达到GB/T3880-1997标准中的规定,并且板材的质量稳定。     

模具温度对铝合金板拉深性能的影响

借助商用有限元仿真软件ABAQUS,采用热力耦合有限元法对汽车用铝合金板5083-O的圆筒件温拉深过程进行数值模拟.在此基础上,利用试验设计方法,分析初始温度布置对拉深能力的影响,并给出拉深件破裂失效形式.研究结果表明,凸模底部和凹模法兰的温度决定着铝合金板拉深能力,在凹模法兰处于较高温度250℃而凸模底部处于室温的拉深模式中,临界凸模行程最大;而拉深件的破裂失效即可能出现在凸模圆角区附近,也可能出现在凹模圆角区附近.可见,差温拉深中温度布置对发挥板料成形能力十分重要.     

Manufacture of an automobile lower arm by hydroforming

An automobile lower arm has been fabricated in a prototype form by hydroforming with the aids of numerical analysis and experiments. For the numerical process design, a program called HydroFORM-3D developed here on the basis of a rigid–plastic model, has been applied to the lower arm hydroforming. The friction calculation between die and workpiece has been dealt with carefully by introducing a new scheme in three-dimensional surface integration. To accomplish successful hydroforming process design, thorough investigation on the proper combination of process parameters such as internal hydraulic pressure, axial feeding and tool geometry has been performed. Results obtained from numerical simulation for a lower arm in the hydroforming process are compared with a series of experiments. The comparison shows that the numerical analysis successfully provides the manufacturing information on the lower arm hydroforming, and it predicts the geometrical deformation and the thinning.     

Processing and properties of ultrafine-grain aluminium alloy 6111 sheet

The equal channel angular processing (ECAP) technique has been applied to an automotive aluminium alloy sheet (A6111). The technique utilizes a machine that was specially designed for this purpose at Monash University. It was determined that ECAP is able to refine the grain size of the sheet, diminish the detrimental as-rolled texture components in the sheet and retain an acceptable level of bi-axial ductility such as is required during the automotive forming process. Experiments were carried out on annealed, as-received sheets that were subjected to either one or two passes through the ECAP machine. For the second ECAP pass, the sheet could be processed in the same orientation as the first pass (route A) or it could be rotated 180° about the direction of feeding (route C). It was determined that route A produced marginally improved properties compared to sheet processed via route C, and that due to the frictional heating generated during the second pass, a significant amount of recovery occurred in the sheet such that an improved combination of texture and formability resulted after two passes compared to the same sheet exposed to only a single pass.     

Strength and biaxial formability of cryo-rolled 2024 aluminium subject to concurrent recovery and precipitation

The precipitate-hardenable aluminium alloy 2024 has been processed by rolling to develop a fine microstructure. Four alloy conditions were tested; these included two rolling temperatures and two different ageing sequences. For all four conditions there was an ideal heat-treatment time at which there was a concurrent improvement in both strength and formability. Microstructural modeling has shown that this is the result of a small processing window in which the hardening due to precipitation is larger than the softening due to recovery, while the detrimental effects of particle coarsening on ductility have not yet developed. Cryo-rolling and room-temperature rolling produced materials with similar strengths, but cryo-rolling showed inferior formability. Natural ageing before rolling significantly decreased the formability compared to rolling in the supersaturated condition, and it is proposed that the solute clusters that develop during natural aging inhibit dynamic recovery and consequently increase the dislocation density that develops during rolling.     

Analysis and design of hydroforming process for automobile rear axle housing by FEM

An FEM program, HydroFORM-3D, for the analysis and design of tube hydroforming processes, has been developed by modifying and adding some subroutines to the previous rigid-plastic finite element program, and then applied to the hydroforming process for an automobile rear axle housing. This paper includes the theoretical background of the program development. Through a numerical simulation, an optimum process is proposed to meet the practical requirements, which shows the efficiency of the numerical simulation. Two types of hydroforming dies are analyzed by numerical simulation. The sliding-type die has the drawback of a possibility of buckling, whereas the fixed-type die causes bursting failure. The thickness distribution of the final product is affected not only by the types of die, but also by the loading paths. The potential failure site for rear axle housing predicted by the numerical simulation is consistent with the experimental results. The values of maximum axial compression force for the first and second hydroforming processes are also in good agreement with experimental data. To manufacture a sound automobile rear axle housing without failure, it is better to use the sliding-type die and it is also critical to maintain a suitable hydraulic pressure level.