THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE MULTILAYER TUBE DRAWING

The paper concerns drawing of a multilayer tube through a conical die. The drawn material is composed of two steel tubes separated by a rubber tube. This type of part is widely used in automotive industry as silentblocks. The traditional technological process is based on mounting of a short rubber sleeve between two steel sleeves. The new idea of silentblocks manufacturing involves drawing of a long steel-rubber-steel tube. To examine the process, experimental and theoretical investigations are performed. In the theoretical analysis a steady state elastoplastic finite element method is employed. The problem is formulated in the Eulerian reference frame. The solution consist of the minimization of the deformation power with respect to a kinematically admissible velocity field and the integration of the stress-rate constitutive equations. The stress rate equations are integrated in the final configuration without linearization. Theoretical results are compared with experimental data for drawing of a steel-rubber-steel tube.