The Effect of Polyurethane Hardness on the New Die-set of Sheet Hydroforming Process parameters

摘要

In recent years, several sheet hydroforming methods have been introduced by researchers. Despite the advantages of these methods, they have some limitations. The author [1] already proposed a novel sheet hydroforming method that is a combination of the standard and hydromechanical sheet hydroforming processes. The proposed method has the advantages of both processes and eliminates their limitations. In this method, a polyurethane diaphragm was used as a part of die-set to control the blank holder force. In this paper, the effect of polyurethane hardness on the effective parameters of the combined sheet hydroforming die-set such as forming pressure, thickness distribution of formed cup and maximum thinning zone of formed cup was investigated experimentally. It was shown that a softer polyurethane needs to a higher oil pressure to prevent wrinkling in the flange of the part. And tearing occurs at higher level of forming pressure. Also it was shown that by softer polyurethane, better thickness distribution was obtained.