Multi-layer sheet hydroforming: Experimental and numerical investigation into the very thin layer in the middle

Sheet hydroforming has gained increasing interest in the automotive and aerospace industries because of its many advantages such as higher forming limitation, good quality of the formed parts and complicated parts can be formed, etc. The main advantage is that the uniform pressure can be transferred to everywhere at the same time. Based on the hydromechanical deep drawing (HDD) with uniform pressure onto the blank, the multi-sheet hydroforming with the very thin middle layer is investigated. Some features of the formed internal, external and middle layers including high drawing ratio, wall thickness distributions, free wrinkling and fracture, etc., are discussed in details. The process parameters' effect on the forming process and the ways to improve the sheets formability are discussed both for in experiment and simulation. The results from a simulation were in reasonable agreement with those from an experiment.