REVIEW OF RESEARCH INTO THE INJECTION FORGING OF TUBULAR MATERIALS

Recent work on the radial extrusion of tubular components performed at DTH and UOS presents new results relevant to the process and to die design. This research was accomplished through physical modeling with wax and through metal experiments in aluminium, together with upper-bound and finite-element analysis. Major process parameters such as the ratio between the inner and the outer diameters of the tube and the ratio between the wall thickness and the gap height were identified, material flow inside the die chamber was characterized, and several different modes of deformation were observed. However, finite-element analysis was unable to characterize these modes of deformation with sufficient accuracy. This work presents a review of the research performed at DTH and IST to overtake previous difficulties found during finite-element simulation. Therefore, the main subject covered in the paper is the successful simulation of the entire modes of deformation and related flaws that can create problems in the production of sound components.