• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.905-910
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• 2010

Exhaust manifolds are the first structures to be developed by hydroforming; mass production of exhaust manifolds by this method will be possible soon. This is obviously related with tight emission regulation induced by environmental problems commonly for both domestic and worldwide and standards, thus evoking its solution for domestic automakers. Compared to conventional cast products, thin-gauge tubular hydroformed exhaust manifold have superior features; for example, in the hydroformed exhaust manifold, gas decomposition during the cold-start period of the engine is reduced by lowering the heat sink, and manufacturing process is simplified since less welding is involved. The aim of this study is to develop a hydroformed exhaust manifold; the study deals with the components, the hydroforming process, and tool design of the manifolds. The performance of the exhaust system is evaluated by performing flow analysis, heat-transfer analysis, heat-stress analysis, and fatigue analysis by using a computer.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.56-61
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• 2016

Heating experiments using the Ti-3Al-2.5V tube materials in a vacuum furnace have been performed to investigate a pertinent range of working temperatures and holding times for the development of the successive or simultaneous operation of superplastic hydroforming and diffusion bonding. The specimens were heated at $820^{\circ}C$, $870^{\circ}C$ and $920^{\circ}C$ respectively. Holding times at each temperature were varied up to 4 hours. Holding times longer than 1 hour were selected to consider the diffusion bonding process after or during the hydroforming process in the superplastic state. Grain sizes were varied from $5.7{\mu}m$ of the as-received tube to $9.2{\mu}m$ after heating at $870^{\circ}C/4hours$. Homogeneus granular microstructures could be maintained up to $870^{\circ}C$, while microstructures at $920^{\circ}C$ showed no more granular type.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.410-417
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• 2017

Hydro-forming is being employed increasingly to realize lightweight vehicular parts. The bumper beam produced by this process weighs 30% less than the conventional products with equal stiffness. However, hydro-forming involves complex parameters to obtain the target geometry and low residual stress. Parametric studies are conducted using finite element analysis to obtain optimized process conditions. Through these numerical approaches, the internal and holding pressures and feeder forward stroke along the extruded direction are optimized to achieve low residual stress and to minimize springback. The numerical results are verified by experimental observations made by employing a three-dimensional laser scanner. The numerical and experimental results are compared in terms of the springback. Both results show similar tendencies.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.226-229
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• 2006

Process design has been performed for the warm hydroforming of light weight alloy tubes. For the heating of tubes, specially designed induction heating system has been adopted to ensure rapid heating of tubes. The induction heating system uses 30kHz frequency induction coil in order to concentrate the energy in the tube and prevent the energy loss. But the induced heat by the integrated heating system, consisting of induction coil, tube, pressure oil and dies, was normally not equally distributed over the length and circumference of the tube specimen, and consequent temperature distribution was non-uniform. So additional heating element has been inserted into the inside of the tube to maintain the forming temperature and reduce temperature drop due to heat loss to the molds. And for that heat loss, a heat insulation system has also been installed. The drop in flow stress at elevated temperatures results in lower internal pressure for hydroforming and lower clamping forces. The proposed warm hydroforming process has been successfully implemented when applying 6061 aluminum extruded tubes.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.230-235
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• 2000

By using the finite element method, the Oyane's ductile fracture integral I was calculated from the histories of stress and strain according to every element and then the forming limit of hydroforming process could be evaluated. The fracture initiation site and the forming limit fer two typical hydroforming processes, tee extrusion and bumper rail under different forming conditions are predicted in this study. For tee extrusion hydroforming process, the pressure level has significant influence on the forming limit. When the expansion area is backed by a supporter and bulged, the process would be more stable and the possibility of bursting failure is reduced. For bumper rail, the ductile fracture integral I is not only affected by the process parameters, but also by the shape of preforming blank. Due to no axial feeding on the end side of the blank, the possibility of cracking in hydroforming of the bumper rail is influenced by the friction condition more strongly than that of the tee extrusion. All the simulation results show reasonable plastic deformation, and the applications of the method could be extended to a wide range of hydroforming processes.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.74-81
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• 2002

Recently tube hydroforming has been widely applied to the automotive industries due to its several advantages over conventional methods. In this paper, attention is paid to comparison of an implicit and an explicit finite element method widely used for numerical simulation of a hydroforming process. For an explicit FEM, a huge amount of computational time is required because of the very small time increment to solve a quasi-static problem. Hence, when an explicit FEM is used fDr a hydroforming process, it is general to convert the real problem to a virtual problem with a different processing time and mass density by appropriate scaling factor. However it is difficult to figure out how large the scaling should be adopted enough to ignore the dynamic effects and maintain the desired accuracy. In this paper, the comparison of the results obtained from both methods focus on the accuracy of the predicted geometrical shape and the stress with various scaling factors which are applied to analyze hydroforming process of an automobile lower arm.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.14 no.6 s.78
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• pp.527-532
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• 2005

Among the failure modes which can occur in tube hydroforming such as wrinkling, bursting or buckling, the bursting by local instability under excessive tensile stresses is irrecoverable phenomenon. Thus, the accurate prediction of bursting condition plays an important role in producing the successfully hydroformed part without any defects. As the classical forming limit criteria, strain-based forming limit diagram (FLD) has widely used to predict the failure in sheet metal forming. However, it is known that the FLD is extremely dependant on strain path throughout the forming process. Furthermore, The application of FLD to hydroforming process, where strain path is no longer linear throughout forming process, may lead to misunderstanding for fracture initiation. In this work, stress-based forming limit diagram (FLSD), which is strain path-independent and more general, was applied to prediction of forming limit in tube hydroforming. Combined with the analytical FLSD determined from plastic instability theory, finite element analyses were carried out to find out the state of stresses during hydroforming operation, and then FLSD is utilized as forming limit criterion. In addition, the approach is verified by a series of bulge tests in view of bursting pressure and shows a good agreement. Consequently, it is shown that the approach proposed in this paper will provide a feasible method to satisfy the increasing practical demands for judging the forming severity in hydroforming processes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.92-96
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• 2005

Among the failure modes which can be occurred in tube hydroforming such as wrinkling, bursting or buckling, the bursting by local instability under excessive tensile stresses is irrecoverable phenomenon. Thus, the accurate prediction of bursting condition plays an important role in producing the successfully hydroformed part without any defects. As the classical forming limit criteria, strain-based forming limit diagram has widely used to predict the failure in sheet metal forming. However, it is known that the FLD is extremely dependant on strain path throughout the forming process. Furthermore, the path-dependent limitation of FLD makes the application to hydroforming process, where strain path is no longer linear throughout forming process, more careful. In this work, stress-based forming limit diagram (FLSD), which is strain path-independent and more general, was applied to prediction of forming limit in tube hydroforming. Combined with the analytical FLSD determined from plastic instability theory, finite element analyses were carried out to find out Ihe state of stresses during hydroforming operation, and then FLSD is utilized as forming limit criterion. In addition, the approach is verified with a series of bulge tests in view of bursting pressure and shows a good agreement. Consequently, it is shown that the approach proposed in this paper will provide a feasible method to satisfy the increasing practical demands for judging the farming severity in hydroforming processes.