M. Palengat, O. Guiraud, C. Millet, Minitubes, Grenoble, France; G. Chagnon, D. Favier, Universités de Grenoble, Grenoble, France
Drawing process is used in manufacturing thin-walled tubes, while reducing progressively their wall thickness and their inner and outer diameters. In this paper a stainless steel 316LVM is studied with one drawing process: hollow sinking. This study gets into different issues including elastoplastic behaviour, thermomechanical coupling, contacts, friction and numerical convergence. Experimental drawings are realized on a testing bench where forces, dimensional data and temperature are recorded. In a first approach, tensile and shear tests lead up to apply an elastoplastic constitutive equation with an isotropic hardening law. In simulations, an axisymetric steady-state thermomechanical model is used. Numerical results are compared with experimental results. Finally, in spite of some defaults, this study shows that finite element modelling is able to foresee accurately the thermomechanical behaviour of a tube during a drawing process. A better understanding and modelling of the thermomechanical behaviour of materials will improve the FEM simulation results.
Summary: Drawing process is used in manufacturing thin-walled tubes, while reducing progressively their wall thickness and their inner and outer diameters. In this paper a stainless steel and a cobalt alloy are studied with two drawing processes, hollow sinking and plug drawing. This study gets into different issues including elastoplastic behaviour, contacts, friction and numerical convergence. Experimental drawings are realized on a testing bench where forces and dimensional data are recorded. In a first approach, tensile tests lead up to apply an elastoplastic constitutive equation with an isotropic hardening law. In simulations, an axisymetric steady-state model, with numeric stabilization if needed, is used. Numerical results are compared with experimental results. Finally, in spite of some defaults, this study shows that finite element modelling is able to foresee accurately the behaviour of a tube during a drawing process. A better understanding and modelling of the mechanical behaviour of materials will improve the FEM simulation results.
