Role of ball size in backward ball spinning of thin-walled tubular part with longitudinal inner ribs

As a successively and locally plastic deformation process, backward ball spinning is applied in order to manufacture thin-walled tubular part with longitudinal inner ribs. Based on the experiments and rigid-plastic finite element method (FEM), the influence of the ball size on deformability of thin-walled tubular part with longitudinal inner ribs during the backward ball spinning is investigated in the present study. The size of ball plays a significant role in backward ball spinning of thin-walled tubular part with longitudinal inner ribs. The size of the ball not only is a critical factor in determining the magnitude of the spinning force, but also has a great influence on the surface finish of the spun part, the steady flow of the metal material as well as the formability of the inner ribs. The results have shown that increasing the size of the balls contributes to the formability of the inner ribs as well as the steady flow of the metal material on the surface of the spun part, but too large ball size leads to poor dimensional accuracy and inferior surface quality of the spun part.