Experimental and Numerical Study on Dieless Drawing Process of Aluminum Alloy Extruded Tubes with Double Hollow Section

A dieless drawing process is applied to non-circular A3003 aluminum alloy extruded tubes with a double hollow section. The deformation and heat transfer behavior of the non-circular tubes during dieless drawing are investigated experimentally and numerically. A finite element (FE) simulation with coupled thermo-mechanical analysis was conducted considering the strain rate sensitivity of the tubes. The total reduction in area of A3003 tubes was 57.75% after 2-pass drawing. The geometrical similarity law in cross section was satisfied for the aluminum extruded tubes with a double hollow section. In contrast, the geometrical similarity law in cross section was not satisfied in some cases when the heating length is short according to the results of the FE simulation. Consequently, it was found that a certain deformation zone length depending on the temperature distribution is necessary to satisfy the geometrical similarity law in cross section.