The Combination of Advanced Tools for Parameters Investigation and Tools Maintenance in Flow Forming Process

Abstract In this work, the authors present an investigation on technological parameters affecting the flow forming process of aluminum alloy 6060 tubular structures and to discuss about the tools maintenance. Flow forming tests were carried out by mounting a single roller on a lathe machine. A 3D thermo-mechanical finite element model was developed to analyze the interaction between the roller and the workpiece in terms of forces, strains and thermal distribution. The effects of friction conditions were investigated through the FE model results and comparing them with acquired thermal maps. The model was validated by comparing the geometrical characteristics of the workpieces, such as the axial elongation, the inner and outer tube diameter. Aluminum spring-back was taken into account with material model adopted in the numerical algorithm. Once collected a complete information on the process parameters, some thermal images were acquired on roller in order to find a parameters set able to reduce the stresses acting on it as far as to obtain the maximum elongation with the minimum number of passes

Investigation on friction conditions during a severe bending deformation on a thick plate

In this paper, the friction behaviour in a severe bending process of a thick plate was investigated, taking into account both dry and lubricated conditions. Early experimental tests were performed to obtain mechanical properties of the low carbon steel AISI 1006, to be used as input in FE solver. Besides a 3D thermo-mechanical model based on FEM was developed to predict stress and strain distributions and final component dimensions. The second experimental series was composed of a coining process and a forming operation to reach the size of the final part. The analysis and the control of the friction conditions has permitted to obtain a product of higher quality that permitted to avoid all the secondary machining operations previously require