HYDRO FORMING

Abstract
Hydroforming is a specialized type of die forming that uses a high pressure
hydraulic fluid to press room temperature working material into a die.
Hydro Forming uses water pressure to form complex shapes from sheet or tube
material. The pressure may go up about 60,000 psi depending on the component.
As the automobile industry strives to make car lighter, stronger and more fuel
efficient, it will continue to drive hydro forming applications. Some automobile
parts such as structural chassis, instrument panel beam, engine cradles and radiator
closures are becoming standard hydro formed parts.
The capability of hydro forming can be more fully used to create complicated
parts. Using a single hydro formed item to replace several individual parts
eliminate welding or hole punching, simplifies assembly and reduce inventory.
This paper gives an overview of the fundamental principles of hydroforming
processes and their variants. The correlations between the work piece geometry
and the design of tool and process and the forming
Hydro forming is a relatively new process, which uses water pressure to form
complex shapes from sheet or tube material. Design studies suggest that
automobiles can be made much lighter by using hydro formed components made
of steel. Structural strength and stiffness can be improved and the tooling costs
reduced because several components can be consolidated into one hydro formed
part.
Applications of hydro forming in automotive industry are gaining globally in
popularity. The trend in auto manufacturing of making parts lighter and more
complicated with necessary strength reinforcement only where required is on the
rise. The capability of hydro forming is more fully used to produce such
complicated parts.

INTRODUCTION
Lightweight vehicles are big news in the automotive industry at the moment,
following the launch of the ultralight steel. Lighter vehicles offer the benefits of
materials and energy savings, and so are more environmentally friendly. But
weight cannot be trimmed from a car without design changes, which is why new
ways of producing lightweight steel components - and of reducing the total number
of components - are vital for the future. One such technique, already proven in the
ULSAB project, is hydroforming.
Hydroforming is a manufacturing process where fluid pressure is applied to ductile
metallic blanks to form desired component shapes. The blanks are either sheet
metal or tubular sections. If sheet metal blanks are used, the process is called sheet
metal hydroforming, and if tubular-section blanks are used, it is called tube
hydroforming. In either of these processes, a hydroforming tool (or die), a
hydraulic press, and a fluid-pressure intensification system are required. Figure 1-1
is a schematic-of such a system. Tube and sheet metal hydroforming are further
divided into various process related techniques.
Hydroforming is a cost-effective way of shaping ductile metals such as aluminum,
brass, low alloy steels,stainless steel into light weight, structurally stiff and strong
pieces. One of the largest applications of hydroforming is the automotive industry,
which makes use of the complex shapes possible by hydroforming to produce
stronger, lighter, and more rigid unibody structures for vehicles. This technique is
particularly popular with the high-end sports car industry and is also frequently
employed in the shaping of aluminum tubes for bicycle frames. Hydroforming is a
specialized type of die forming that uses a high pressure hydraulicfluid to press
room temperature working material into a die. Hydro forming allows complex
shapes with concavities to be formed, which would be difficult or impossible with
standard solid die stamping. Hydro formed parts can often be made with a higher
stiffness-to-weight ratio and at a lower per unit cost than traditional stamped or
stamped and welded parts. Virtually all metals capable of cold forming can be
hydro formed, including aluminum, brass, carbon and stainless steel, copper and
high strength alloys

What is Hydroforming ?
Hydroforming uses fluid pressure in place of the punch in a conventional tool set
to form the part into the desired shape of the die (figure 1). The technique is very
useful for producing whole components that would otherwise be made from
multiple stampings joined together. For example, a typical chassis component that
would normally be made by pressing up to six channel sections and joining by spot
welding can be hydroformed as a single part. Considerable mass savings are
possible through eliminating the flanges required for welding and using thinner
steel. Yet stiffness is maintained owing to the elimination of the discontinuous
spot-welded joints.

Acceptance of Hydroforming
Hydroforming is already widely used - in the US, more than a million engine
cradles a year are produced by hydroforming processes, and in Europe the
technology is being used in sub-frames for models such as Fords Mondeo and
General Motorss Vectra. Some 2.8 million components a year for one of
Chryslers model are produced by hydroforming, too. However, as hydroforming particularly high-pressure hydroforming - is at the frontier of modern steel
technology, many designers and engineers still need convincing of its capabilities.

Types of Hydroforming
There are four main types of hydroforming:
Hydroforming of tubes, usually at low pressure, is the most widely used
technology at present, with hydroformed tubular parts offering improved
integrity and structural performance.
Low pressure hydroforming simply reshapes tubes, producing a very good
shape, but is not as useful if better cross section definition is required.

 High pressure hydro forming, totally changes the tube shape and alters the
length to circumference ratio by up to 50%. It gives very good tolerance
control, being a highly robust process.
Panel hydroforming at high pressures is used in the aerospace industry, and
is expected to be used for applications in the automotive industry in which
hydroforming is needed to get the right material flow.

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