Abstract
Among the failure modes which can occur in tube hydroforming such as wrinkling, bursting or buckling, the bursting by local instability under excessive tensile stresses is irrecoverable phenomenon. Thus, the accurate prediction of bursting condition plays an important role in producing the successfully hydroformed part without any defects. As the classical forming limit criteria, strain-based forming limit diagram (FLD) has widely used to predict the failure in sheet metal forming. However, it is known that the FLD is extremely dependant on strain path throughout the forming process. Furthermore, The application of FLD to hydroforming process, where strain path is no longer linear throughout forming process, may lead to misunderstanding for fracture initiation. In this work, stress-based forming limit diagram (FLSD), which is strain path-independent and more general, was applied to prediction of forming limit in tube hydroforming. Combined with the analytical FLSD determined from plastic instability theory, finite element analyses were carried out to find out the state of stresses during hydroforming operation, and then FLSD is utilized as forming limit criterion. In addition, the approach is verified by a series of bulge tests in view of bursting pressure and shows a good agreement. Consequently, it is shown that the approach proposed in this paper will provide a feasible method to satisfy the increasing practical demands for judging the forming severity in hydroforming processes.
