Study on Micro Hydroforming of Metals

Abstract

Micro hydroforming has an ability to manufacture complex 3D micro parts at a high production rate and has drawn increasing attentions. Brief understanding of macro hydroforming, for instance, deep drawing, is necessary to understand the principle of micro hydroforming. Then, special phenomena, such as size effects, occurred at micro scale are discussed and the related theories explaining these phenomena are introduced. Based on the similarities and differences between micro and macro hydroforming, experiments and simulation which consider the size effects are reviewed.