Groove deformation analysis of a single plough on inner copper tube

Plough is a useful method to fabricate groove-shaped microchannels. In this paper, a plough method to manufacture grooves on inner surface of copper tube was present, and a normal section reference system of plough tool was set up. A FEM simulation approach operated on DEFORM ver.2001 was established to analyze stress distribution, velocity distribution and plough force during plough. Both FEM simulations and experiments were conducted to discuss the grooves surface quality and geometry, to analyze the influence of plough depth on groove deformation. Results show that two kinds of grooves, which are V-shaped and U-shaped, generate on the inner surface of copper tube at same time after plough. The grooves geometries, effective stress and plough force increase as the plough depth increases. To manufacture grooves on inner copper tube successfully, the plough depth should be smaller than the depth where the maximum depth of deformation layer is equal to the tube wall thickness. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.