An Experimental/Numerical study on the effect of forming parameters in sheet hydrodynamic deep drawing

Abstract

There are many parameters that affect the sheet hydroforming process such as fluid pressure, material properties, interfacial friction between blank and tool surfaces, etc. In this paper, a FEM-based Taguchi method is used to determine the effects of forming parameters on the quality of part formability in the process of hydrodynamic deep drawing assisted by radial pressure. Four important forming parameters, fluid pressure, friction coefficient at blank/punch interface, die entrance radius and the amount of gap between die rim block and blank holder are considered in this investigation. In order to have more comprehensive study, three different workpieces are used as the case studies. Three-dimensional FE models are developed for simulating the forming process. After experimental validation, these models are used for performing the set of experiments designed by Taguchi’s orthogonal array. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) techniques are used to calculate the contributions of each of the mentioned parameters to the output characteristic. The results indicate that fluid pressure in the die cavity and friction coefficient at blank/punch interface are the most influential parameters. Also, die entrance radius and the amount of gap between die rim block and blank holder have considerable effect on the part formability. The obtained results may provide useful guidance on determining forming parameters. Also, further optimization of the forming parameters can be done based on the degree of importance of the parameters on the sheet hydroformability.