A study on numerical simulation of hydroforming of aluminum alloy tube

Tube hydroforming is a process of manufacturing lightweight components, especially automotive parts. The typical failure modes such as folding back, wrinkling, buckling and fracture often occur due to the unreasonable selection of internal pressure and axial feeding. Most previous papers draw the conclusion that wrinkling is a failure mode. However, according to research carried out by the authors of this paper, not all wrinkles are defects. Accumulation of materials in main deformation areas through wrinkles is an alternative method for obtaining a perfect part. The key point is to obtain “useful” wrinkles instead of “dead” wrinkles. An investigation has been conducted on how to control the shape of the wrinkle waves and its effect on thickness distribution after hydroforming by using finite element simulation. To explore the effect of bending and unbending, a 2D simulation software, LS-DYNA2D, was used. It was found that the results from FEM can be used effectively of modelling of the main process parameters.