Experimental investigation on flow-forming of AA6061 alloy—A Taguchi approach

An annealed AA6061 aluminum tubing preform was cold flow-formed into a seamless tube. A multiple pass flow-forming was performed. In this investigation, the influence of the various flow-forming process parameters on the percentage elongation (%D) has been analyzed. The parameters considered are the speed of the mandrel, S (rpm), the depth of cut, D_c (mm) and the feed, F (mm/min). The effects of these input parameters on the response, percentage elongation (%D) have been critically analyzed using Taguchi method. It has been found that the depth of cut is the most important process parameter affecting the percentage elongation. The flow-forming process produced a maximum percentage elongation of 18% when the process parameters were set at their optimum values.