FEM analysis of pipe reduction forming process for increasing of wall thickness

摘要

In recent years, it has been focused on reducing the products weight of automotive parts to improve the fuel consumption of automobiles. The partial increasing method in wall thickness through pipe processing has been attracted attention. A method of reducing a pipe wall thickness to obtain a desired diameter was proposed by Kiuchi et al. propose a planetary roller reducer. A planetary roller reducer could be used to control pipe wall thickness in combination with a die that reduces the pipe diameters. In this study, we proposed a new method to increase the wall thickness of a pipe during pipe reducing by using planetary rolls. Establishing a technology that the wall thickness of a pipe can be controlled without buckling is important for the weight reduction of products. Using a finite element analysis, it has been revealed that of a 3mm thick pipe can be possible to increase approximately 20% wall thickness.