Iranian Journal of Manufacturing Engineering

Iranian Journal of Manufacturing Engineering

Experimental study of the flow forming process of grooved copper-aluminum bi-layer tubes and investigation of the separation force between the two layers

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mojtaba Alipour Layin 1
Amir Ashrafi 1
Majid Khodadadi 2
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran
2 Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Esfarayen University of Technology, Esfarayen, Iran
10.22034/ijme.2025.498237.2040
Abstract
In this research, the flow forming process of aluminum-copper bi-layer tubes was studied. A ball tool was used for shaping the tubes. The pressure applied by the tool causes the outer layer to flow and exert pressure on the inner layer, resulting in a tube with increased length and reduced thickness. In this case, the material of the outer tube enters the grooves of the inner tube, forming a mechanical interlock between the two tubes. In this study, grooves were created on the surface of the inner tube, which was then placed inside the outer tube, and the flow forming process was performed on it. Two categories of parameters were considered. The first category includes spindle rotational speed, feed rate, and depth, which were kept constant. The second category includes grooves depth, and pitch, which were considered variable. For the experiments, the samples were first prepared with appropriate grooves and then subjected to the flow forming process. In the next stage, to assess the bonding strength between the two tubes, a peel test was conducted. For circular grooves, increasing the groove pitch results in approximately a 33% reduction in force, decreasing from about 19 kN to around 13 kN at a groove depth of 0.5 mm and from approximately 34 kN to 24 kN at a groove depth of 0.75 mm. Additionally, it is observed that, increasing the groove depth from 0.5 mm to 0.75 mm nearly doubles the separation force.
Keywords
Flow Forming
Bi-Layer Tube
Grooved Surface
Separation Force
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