Investigating the effect of process parameters on gas forming of AA6063 aluminum tube at hot temperature using response surface method

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Technical and Vocational University, Tehran, Iran
2 Research Center for Advanced Processes of Materials Forming, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Babol, Iran
Abstract
Aluminum alloys have many applications, anti-corrosion properties, and good strength-to-weight ratio. The hot metal gas forming process is one of the new methods.   In this article, a statistical method based on finite element simulation has been used in order to obtain the highest percentage of mold filling and the lowest percentage of thinning in the forming area of 6063 aluminum alloy cylindrical stepped tubes. First, the detailed model of the finite elements of the process is prepared and the accuracy of the created model is confirmed by comparison with the results of the experimental part. Then the regression analysis of the response procedure has been used to fit a level on the responses obtained from the experiments. Effective factors including forming temperature, pressure, pressure rate, axial feed and punching speed were evaluated from the response surface method in order to extract the model and find the greatest effect. Each of these factors has been studied at three levels in the form of central composite design experiments to identify the effect of parameters and the best conditions. Design Expert software was used for modeling the response surface method and Abaqus finite element software was used for simulation. According to the obtained results, the optimal point obtained for both studied characteristics is: Temperature 552 °C, pressure 6.5 bar, pressure rate 0.02 bar/s, axial feed 7 mm and feed speed 0.05 mm/s with filling percentage 91.2 and thinning percentage 10.37 were obtained. The presented model for predicting the values of the dependent variables had very close results with the experimental findings.
Keywords
Subjects

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Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
February 2023
Pages 83-99

  • Receive Date 15 May 2022
  • Revise Date 12 October 2022
  • Accept Date 12 December 2022
  • First Publish Date 12 December 2022
  • Publish Date 20 February 2023