Investigation of Aluminum-Copper Tube Hydroforming with Axial Feeding

Abstract

Hydroforming of a two‐layered Aluminum‐Copper tube is investigated numerically and experimentally. Pressure is applied through a nonlinear path along with symmetrical axial feeding. ABAQUS/Explicit commercial code is used for finite element simulation of the process. ASTM C11000 Copper alloy is used as inner layer and ASTM AA1050A Aluminum alloy is used as outer layer. The simulation results show that the part can be successfully formed under internal pressure of 40 MPa with 8 mm axial displacement. Stress distributions on both inner and outer tubes are compared and maximum thinning on their wall is also discussed. Different friction conditions are applied on the process using different coefficients of friction and their effects are investigated on thinning percentage of inner and outer tubes and also on axial feeding. It is observed that finite element results are in good agreement with experimental results.