Deformation behavior in tube bending: a comparative study of compression bending and rotary draw bending

Abstract

As the first study in the field regarding CB, this paper investigates the implications of interchanging between RDB and CB through manufacturing bends with various angles and investigates the difference between the two methods in form of springback, cross section compression and widening, cross section shape and wall thinning/thickening. The experiments conducted consists of aluminum alloy 6060-T4 round tubes of 60 mm diameter and 3 mm wall thickness, bent around 222 mm radius tooling with various bend angles. In this case, we have found that CB is capable of manufacturing bends with quality near those manufactured by RDB with less springback, however with a dimensional penalty regarding increased deformation of the cross section.