Hydroforming design and process advisor

The hydroforming process involves hydraulically forming components by conforming them to the inner contours of a die. These contours can be complex and can often cause the material being formed to be stressed to rupture. Considerable process knowledge and materials modeling expertise is required to design hydroform dies and hydroformed parts that are readily formed without being overly stressed. For this CRADA, materials properties for steel tubes subjected to hydraulic stresses were collected; algorithms were developed which combined the materials properties data with process knowledge; and a user friendly graphical interface was utilized to make the system usable by a design engineer. A prototype hydroforming advisor was completed and delivered to GM. The technical objectives of the CRADA were met allowing for the development of an intelligent design systems, prediction of forming properties related to hydroforming, simulation and modeling of process execution, and design optimization. The design advisor allows a rapid and seamless approach to integration an otherwise enormous and onerous task of analysis and evaluation