Investigation on the effects of process parameters in pulsating hydroforming using Taguchi method

Tube hydroforming is a process that uses internal pressure and axial feeding simultaneously to form a tube into a desired shape. The internal pressure provides the stress required to yield the material while axial feeding eases metal flow helping to produce a part without wrinkles and with even wall thickness. Pulsating pressure hydroforming applies loading path with fluctuating pressures. In this study, pulsating pressure hydroforming of T-joint part was examined experimentally. Six process parameters in pulsating pressure loading path were selected. Using Taguchi design of experiments with six parameters and two levels for each parameter, 12 experiments were conducted to study the effects of pulsating pressure parameters on the parts’ defects and shape accuracy. Signal-to-noise ratio and analysis of variance were employed to determine the important process parameters affecting the final part in terms of wrinkling, bulge height and wall thickness. Three linear regressions without any interaction between the parameters were extracted for three quality responses and were evaluated through three extra experiments that show the best levels for three responses. The results show reasonable agreement between the experiments and linear regression models.