FMEA for the reliability of hydroformed flanged part for automotive application

Tube hydroforming technology is widely used in the automotive industries due to its advantages such as weight reduction, increased strength, improved quality, and reduced tooling cost compared to conventional manufacturing technology. The hydroformed parts often have to be structurally joined at some point. Therefore, the hydroformed automotive parts which have a localized attachment flange are useful. In many cases, the parts formed by hydroforming process are directly related with structural safety, reliability of hydroformed parts must be considered. In this study, hydroforming process of flanged rectangular parts was designed and process reliability was investigated. Finite element analysis was performed to optimize tool geometry considering process parameters such as die aspect ratio and pressure conditions with Dynaform 5.5. Hydroforming experiments to fabricate a flanged rectangular part were performed with optimized tool geometry. The relationship between process parameters and defect was analyzed by FMEA (failure modes and effects analysis). The result shows that process condition was optimized and reliability of rectangular part was increased.