Hydroforming Process Design Using Finite Element Simulation for a Vehicle Instrument Panel Support Frame

摘要

Tubular hydroforming has attracted increased attention in the vehicle industry recently. This paper covers a complete hydroforming process design for an instrument panel frame by finite element simulation using the explicit code LS-DYNA. The manufacturing process for the instrument panel frame consists of tube pre-bending and final hydroforming. To accomplish hydroforming process design successfully, a thorough investigation of proper combination of process parameters such as internal hydraulic pressure and axial feeding is carried out by finite element simulation to predict the tube wall thickness and shape. An optimized process parameter combination is obtained and verified by the instrument panel frame hydroforming experiment. The experiment shows that designed process parameters can be used in real production through FEA simulation, but tubular thinned amplitude by FEA is less than that with the experiment.