Study of hydroformed tailor-welded tubular parts with dissimilar thickness

Tube hydroforming is nowadays widely used in automotive and aircraft industries. In the present paper, new developments of tubular hydroforming simulation are shown, focusing on the main features of forming tailor-welded tubes. The key idea is to proper analyse hydroforming operations on previously tailor-welded tubes. Numerical investigations of tubular hydroforming processes, starting from tailor-welded tubes with one butt-welded joint only (with the same diameter and different thickness) are carried out. A numerical finite element-based tool for a preliminary structural evaluation and design-aided of tubular hydroformed parts is presented.