A conical mandrel tube drawing test designed to assess failure criteria

Cold tube drawing is a metal forming process which enables to produce tubes with high dimensional precision. It consists in reducing tube dimensions by pulling it through a die. Tube outer diameter is calibrated by a die and the tube inner diameter and thickness are calibrated by a mandrel. One of the major concern of metal forming industry is the constant improvement of productivity and product quality. In the aim of pushing the process to the limit the question is how far the material can be processed without occurrence of failure. In the present study, a long conical mandrel with a small cone angle was designed in order to carry out drawing tests up to fracture with experimental conditions very close to the industrial process. The FEM of the process was built in order to access the local stress and strain data. A specific emphasis was put on the friction characterisation. For that purpose force measurement during the conical mandrel experiments enabled to characterise a pressure dependent friction coefficient constitutive law by means of an inverse analysis. Finally, eleven failure criteria were selected to study the drawability of cobalt–chromium alloy tubes. The assessment of failure criteria based on damage variables or damage accumulation variables involved their calibration on uniaxial tensile tests. The experimental studies were completed by SEM fractography which enabled to understand the fracture locus and the propagation direction of the fracture.