Additive Tooling for Tube Hydroforming

The use of tube hydroforming in manufacturing is increasing in popularity, particularly in automotive applications where it offers numerous cost and well-recognized performance advantages over conventional stamping and welding processes. In this paper, the use of indirect Additive Tooling is explored in the creation of tool inserts to be used in the production of exhaust manifolds for the automotive industry. The principal focus of this research concerns the identification of operational issues arising from the exploitation of Additive Tooling, together with the suggestion of a number of techniques and solutions which may be applied to mitigate the problems inherent in the rapid manufacture of tube hydroforming tools.