Response Surface Method for the Rapid Design of Process Parameters in Tube Hydroforming

This paper deals with the optimization of tube hydroforming parameters in order reduce defects which may occur at the end of forming process such as necking and wrinkling. We propose a specific methodology based on the coupling between an inverse method for the rapid simulation of tube hydroforming process, and a Response Surface Method based on diffuse approximation. The response surfaces are built using Moving Least Squares approximations and constructed within a moving region of interest which moves across a predefined discrete grid of authorized experimental designs. An application of hydroforming of a bulge from aluminium alloy 6061-T6 tubing has been utilized to validate our methodology. The final design is validated with ABAQUS Explicit Dynamic commercial code