초록
Tube hydroforming is recently drawing attention of automotive industries due to its seberal advantages over conventional methods. It can produce wide range of products such as subframes, engine cradles, and exhaust manifolds with cheaper production cost by reducing overall number of processes. Tube hydroforming process is divided into prebending process and hydroforming process. Tube bending ins an important factor of the hydroforming process to enable the tube to be placed in the die cavity. This paper presents the theoretical analysis and the simulation results of the tube bending process. With some assumptions, approximate equations are derived to predict the thickness distribution on the cross section and the spring back of the bent tube. Bending simulations are carried out and compared to the analytical and experimental results.
