Injection Forging of Industrial Components From Thick-Walled Tubes

Abstract

Traditional forging techniques are limited to the manufacture of components from solid materials; tubes may only be formed with a form of internal support to prevent the collapse of the work-material under axial forces. There is, however, the scope for achieving sufficiently large plastic deformation of tubes by injection into a diecavity; the extend of such deformation may be enlarged by preforming. The preform is designed to prevent the onset of one of the previously-identified modes of failure; the geometry of the preform was generated using a finite element model which was conditioned on the basis of a large set of experimental results. This paper discusses the possibility of applying the injection forging process in order to allow the complete forming of a geometrically complex tubular component in a single station. The work is supported by finite element modelling in conjunction with metal experiments in aluminum. Metallographic observations and micro-hardness measurements were performed to validate the approach.