Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of a New Process for Forming Flanges on Hollow Parts

The paper presented a new method for forming flanges on hollow parts by incremental radial extrusion. In the classic process of radial extrusion, additional rings were used to limit the free flow of material in the radial direction. The flange was formed progressively, using rings of increasing diameters. The proposed method was verified by numerical analysis and experimental tests. The numerical calculations were performed by the finite element method using the Deform-3D software package. Tubes made of aluminum alloy EN AW 6060 were used as billets. Laboratory tests were carried out using the Instron 1000 HDX testing machine. The objective of the study was to determine the validity of the proposed flange extrusion method. Results demonstrated that the new method made it possible to produce flanges with a relatively large diameter and uniform thickness, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed forming technique.