The effect of anisotropy on thin-walled tube bending

Abstract

Thin-walled tube bending has found many of its applications in the automobile and aerospace industries. The rotary-drawbending method which is a complex physical process with multi-factor interactive effects is one of the advanced tube forming processes with high efficiency, high forming precision, low consumption and good flexibility for bending angle changes. However it may produce a wrinkling phenomenon, over thinning and cross-section distortion if the process parameters are inappropriate. Wrinkles propagate permanently in thin-walled tube, but finally, localize in a finite zone and lead to failure. The prediction of wrinkling in thin-walled tube bending processes has been a challenging topic. In this paper, firstly, the plastic deforming behavior and wrinkling mechanism for a thin-walled tube is simulated and the results will compare with the available experimental ones. Then, the effect of anisotropy on ovalization, thickness and wrinkling of tube will be investigated using FEM. Extensive numerical results are presented showing the effects of the various kinds of materials and geometric parameters on wrinkling using anisotropic yield function. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.