A study of the spinning force of hollow parts with triangular cross sections

The noncircular spinning is one of the recent breakthroughs of the traditional spinning processes. The spinning force is one of the important parameters for designing the spinning equipment and one of the main factors influencing the forming quality of spun parts. The variation of spinning force during noncircular spinning is considerably different from that of the conventional spinning due to the high-speed reciprocating movement of the roller induced by the variable spun workpiece profile. This paper presents an experimental investigation of spinning force characteristics of a hollow part with triangular cross sections using an octagon ring transducer based on electrical measuring method. A series of experiments using profiling driving spinning method was carried out to study the effects of the main process parameters, such as the roller feed rate, blank thickness–diameter ratio, and mandrel rotational speed, on the spinning force characteristics. The important characteristics of the force components of noncircular spinning were discussed based on the electrical measuring results. Furthermore, the variations of force components were compared with those obtained in the cases of conventional spinning and 3D non-axisymmetrical spinning. The results show that different from the conventional spinning and similar to the 3D non-axisymmetrical spinning, the three components of spinning force along the axial, radial, and tangential direction of roller vary periodically with the mandrel rotational angle. Different from the conventional and the 3D non-axisymmetrical spinning, the maximum spinning force is related to the mandrel rotational speed, even if the feed rate of roller remains constant, and increases with the increase of the mandrel rotational speed.