Numerical and experimental modelling of seamless stainless steel tubes hydroforming processes
Résumé
This work presents two tools sets for the Tube Hydroforming (THF) process of stainless steel seamless tubes. The first applies only pressure in the tube and the second applies pressure and axial load simultaneously. The internal pressure vs. the free radial expansion was monitored on the tool set 1 and modelled by the Finite Element Method (FEM) with 316L stainless steel sheet properties. The results show that the tube properties must be used instead of the sheet properties. This work is the first step of a larger investigation to design a procedure for tubular blanks and hydroforming parts and tooling.