• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.317-322
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• 2014

Bursting during tube hydroforming is preceded by localized necking. The retardation of the initiation of necking is a means to enhance hydroformability. Since high strain gradients occur at the necking sites, a decrease in local strain gradients is an effective way to retard the initiation of necking. In the current study, the expansion at potential necking sites was intentionally restricted in order to reduce the strain gradient at potential necking sites. From the strain distribution obtained from FEM, it is possible to determine strain concentrated zones, which are the potential necking sites. Prior to the hydroforming of a trailing arm, an incompressible material(such as lead) is attached to the tube where the strain-concentrated zone would contact the die. Due to the incompressibility of lead, the tube expansion is locally restricted, and the resultant strain extends to adjacent regions of the tube during hydroforming. After the first stage of hydroforming, the lead is removed from the tube, and the hydroforming continues to the final targeted shape without any local restriction. This method was successfully used to fabricate a complex shaped automotive trailing arm that had previously failed during traditional hydroforming fabrication.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.364-367
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• 2001

Recently social demands of fuel economy and environmental regulation require the development of light materials and new manufacturing technologies. In this point, aluminum tube hydroforming, which is satisfied with good strength-to-weight ratio and recyclability, is new innovative concept. but, up to now the level of that is relatively low. In this paper, we studied formability of different aluminum tubes in different heat treatments under internal pressure and axial feeding, and mechanical properties of aluminum tubes before and after hydroforming.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.426-431
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• 2007

Hydroformability and fracture criteria of FE analysis based on ductile fracture were investigated in warm hydroforming of A16061 tube. To evaluate the hydroformability, uni-axial tensile test and bulge test were performed at room temperature and $200^{\circ}C$. The measured flow stresses were used as input parameters for FE analysis. The damage values were calculated by FE analysis based on ductile fracture criteria at maximum radius of free bulged tubes. Damage values were compared of hexagonal shaped hydroformed parts. As a result, the formability by critical damage value for extruded tube is lower than that of full annealed tube up to 0.5.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.255-258
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• 2005

In this study, the effect of heat treatment conditions and deformation temperature on the formability were investigated in warm hydroforming of Al 6061 tube. Full annealing and T6-treatment for heattreatment of Al6061 tube were used in this study. To evaluate the hydroformability, uniaxial tensile test and bulge test were performed between room temperature and $300^{\circ}C$. And measured flow stress was used to simulate the hydroforming of Al 6061. A commercial FEM code, DEFORM2D, was used to calculate the damage and strain variation. The calculated values were efficient to predict the forming limit in hydroforming for real complex shaped part.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.403-408
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• 2004

Hydroformability of 6061 and 7075 aluminum tube materials was studied by warm hydroforming experiments. A special tooling and heating system was designed and manufactured in order to perform warm hydroforming between room temperature and $300^{\circ}C$. The control of tube temperature for warm hydroforming was made by the control of temperature of oil medium. Warm hydroformability was analyzed by tube appearances, tube elongation and hardness values. Hydroforming characteristics of 6061 and 7075 tubes showed different temperature dependence between room temperature and $300^{\circ}C$. The difference in hydroformabilities of 6061 and 7075 at elevated temperatures was interpreted by the different sensitivity to dynamic strain aging of both aluminum materials.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.318-321
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• 2006

In this strudy, the free-bulge test and FE analysis have been used to define the fracture criteria based on the cockroft and Latham's criterion in warm hydroforming of Al 6061 tube. Full annealing and T6 treatment for heat treatment of Al 6061 tube ware used in this study. As-extruded, full annealed and T6-treated Al 6061 seamless tubes were prepared. To evaluate the hydroformability, uni-axial tensile test and bulge test were performed between room temperature and $200^{\circ}C$. And measured flow stress was used to simulate the warm hydroforming. A commercial FEM code, DEFORM-$2D^{TM}$, was used to calculate the damage value. A forming limit based ductile fracture criteria has been proposed by the results of experimental and FE analysis. The calculated values for fracture criteria will be efficient to predict the forming limit in hydroforming for real complex shaped part.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.93-98
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• 2006

Warm forming technology was classified into hot gas forming of using compressible fluid as a nitrogen gas and warm hydroforming of using the incompressible fluid as a thermal oil by using medium fluid. In this study, the aluminum side-rail part was developed with warm hydroforming technology. For the warm hydroforming system, top and bottom die was designed to insert heating cartridge in die cavity and special indirect fluid heating system was designed to heat the thermal oil. As increase the temperature, hydroformability was increased linearly. Aluminum side-rail center part was formed 90% at the internal pressure of 100bar and perfectly formed at 300bar within a moderate temperature. The tube material used for warm hydroforming was a aluminum 6000 series alloy with the diameter of 120mm, thickness of 5mm, length of 1,300mm. Warm hydroformed side-rail center part had 20% of maximum expansion ratio and below 20% of maximum thinning ratio at corner radius. This results were provided to show warm hydroforming possibility for aluminum automotive components.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.239-242
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• 2005

In the roll forming, a flat strip is progressively deformed by feeding it through a series of rotating rolls. There are various layouts for the tube toll-forming stages. The process sequences are as follows: leveling, roll-forming, welding, bead removing, seam annealing, cooling, sizing and cutting. Electric resistance welded(ERW) tubes have been widely used for the machinery parts, especially for hydroformed automotive parts. However conventional ERW tubes do not have a high formability because of hardening of welded portion by rapid cooling. Moreover the decrease in thickness of the welded portion during the grinding of the inner and outer bead may reduce the formability of the tube. In case of applying the tubular parts without grinding the bead, the flow of the fluid can be prevented due to the turbulent flow induced by the inner bead. In attempt to determine the optimal bead grinding amount in the roll forming process, in the present paper, the effects of the removal depth and width of the inner beads on the hydroformability are analyzed by the finite element simulation.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.14 no.6 s.78
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• pp.514-519
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• 2005

A tube hydroformability testing system was designed and fabricated enabling to apply the forming condition along arbitrarily pre-programmed internal pressure-axial feed path. The free-bulging and T-forming tests were carried out on the extruded aluminum (A6063) tube specimens with 40.6 mm outer diameter and 2.25 mm thickness. Nine different combinations of internal pressure and axial feed, yielding different strain paths from one another, were taken into consideration in order to induce bursting at various deformation modes. Major and minor strains were automatically measured from deformed grids around the fracture using a stereo-vision-based surface strain measurement system, named ASIAS. The forming limit diagram of the A6063 tube material was successfully obtained. Most of the data points acquired from free bulging and T-forming tests appeared in the range of negative minor strain on the FLD and are mostly located near the strain paths calculated from explicit finite element simulations. The forming limit obtained from tests after pre-tension was considerably lower than that from tests without pre-tension, which showed the strain path-dependency of the forming limit as well known in the sheet forming fold.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.244-248
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• 2003

Recently social demands of fuel economy and environmental regulations require the development of light materials and new manufacturing technologies. In this point, the aluminum tube hydroforming process which is satisfied with good strength-to-weight ratio and recyclability is innovative concept. However the level of the aluminum tube hydroforming technology is low in comparison with that of steel tube hydroforming. In this paper, the hydroformability of aluminum tubes in different heat treatments is presented. Theoretical results for forming limits of the wrinkling and bursting are compared with experimental results of aluminum tubes.