Numerical and Experimental Study of Preforming Stage in Tube Hydroforming

Abstract

The preforming stage in hydroforming of an aerospace generic shape was investigated using a combination of experimentation and numerical modeling. The preform die was manufactured using a rapid prototyping method, namely the selective laser sintering (SLS) process. The preforming experiments were conducted on 0.9 mm and 1.2 mm thick stainless steel 321 (SS321) tubes. To evaluate the preforming process, an automated deformation measurement system, ARGUS®, was used to measure the 3-dimensional (3D) strains on the deformed tubes. Data collected from the experiments were used to validate the simulation of the preforming stage. The simulation and experimental results were found to be in good agreement, indicating that the preform model can be used as a starting point for simulating the tube hydroforming (THF) process. In addition, the SLS approach was found to be very promising, as it reduced greatly the lead time and cost of process development for THF.