Numerical Investigation of Manufacturability of Various Compound Shapes Using Sheet Hydroforming Process

The demand for complex sheet parts has increased more and more in the modern lightweight construction, especially in the automotive industry. Complex drawn sheet parts can be usually achieved in one step with using the hydroforming technology. As the demand for the complex products increase, the need of hydroforming process will greatly expanded around the world due to its many advantages. Complex parts have many convex and/or concave features on it. The shapes, dimensions and the positions of the features are important for manufacturing high quality products. So understanding these geometrical parameters on the product quality has great importance. In this study, the effects of the geometrical parameters of the complex stepped parts on the manufacturability by using sheet hydroforming process were numerically investigated for AA5754 aluminum alloy and some of results were experimentally confirmed.