An improved procedure for manufacture of 3D tubes with springback concerned in flexible bending process

Three dimensional (3D) tubes, which possess the characteristics of space saving, lightweight and high strength, are widely used in many high-end industries such as aviation, aerospace, automobile and shipbuilding. However, when manufacturing a 3D tube in flexible bending process, springback is a big obstacle for improving the forming quality. In this paper, a new comprehensive strategy for springback control of 3D tubes is proposed. The strategy can be described as follows: (1) define the desired shape and manufacture shape; (2) optimize the manufacture shape using two tooling design methods (e.g. DA (displacement adjustment) method and B&T (bending and twisting) method presented in this paper); (3) make a discretization of the manufacture shape to acquire the optimized forming parameters. Additionally, experiment is implemented to validate the effectiveness of the new strategy. Results show that forming parameters acquired by the new strategy are partially effective. The new strategy also demonstrates that, during 3D tubes forming, the deviation caused by over-bent elements can be counteracted by the deficient-bent elements. This principle is helpful to reduce the difficulty of parameter determination in future.