Towards an integrated robust and loop tooling design for tube bending

Bent tubular parts have attracted extensive applications in various industries due to high strength and light weight. However, tube bending (TB) is a strong knowledge-based tri-nonlinear physical process with multi-tool constrains, and minor inappropriate tooling design may induce several failures such as wrinkling, over thinning (even fracture), section distortion, and springback. In response to the urgent requirements of the tubular products with mass quantities and diverse specifications, we proposed an integrated methodology for robust and loop tooling design for TB by combining several technologies such as knowledge-based engineering, parametric CAD modeling, and parametric finite element modeling. Via the spreadsheet formatted rules extracted from different sources of knowledge, several sequences are automatically conducted to preliminarily avoid the wrinkling and section distortion, including the selection of tooling sets (bend die, clamp die, pressure die, wiper die, or mandrel die with flexible balls), the determination of die dimensions, 3D modeling of both external and internal tools, die assemble, and the selection of material type for each die. Then, by importing the feature parameters of tools into 3D-finite elements models, the bendability of tube under previously designed multi-tool constraints is quantitatively evaluated in terms of multi-defect, and the springback can be calculated to redesign the bending die by radius reduction. The design variables are only tube diameter, wall thickness, bending radius, bending angle, and material types. The tool design system is then implemented, and the reliability and efficiency of the system are experimentally verified in the aviation industries regarding several practical bending cases with different specifications and tubular materials.