Upper-bound analysis of the pressure-assisted injection forging of thick-walled tubular components with hollow flanges

An upper-bound analysis of the pressure-assisted injection forging (PAIF) of thick-walled tubular components with hollow flanges was conducted to predict the maximum forming-pressure requirements. The polymeric pressurizing material and the pure aluminium work material employed were assumed to obey the von-Mises’ yield criterion, the two materials being divided into three and six zones, respectively, and described using kinematically admissible velocity fields. An upper-bound solution was derived based on this model. Experiments were conducted to validate the solution. The results suggest that the upper-bound analysis has sufficient accuracy for the prediction of the forming-pressure requirements. Subsequently, a parametric analysis was conducted to study the effects of variation of the principal parameters of the process and the geometry, such as tube thicknesses, flange dimensions and friction, on the forming-force requirements, which showed other useful applications of the upper-bound solutions.