The benefit from an adequate finite element simulation of the cold hole expansion process

The article presents outcomes from finite element and X-ray diffraction analyses of the cold hole expansion process fulfilled by means of solid mandrel gradually passing through the hole. Regardless of the manner of accomplishing – split sleeve; split mandrel; with a mating tapered split sleeve; spherical mandrelling – an axial gradient of the residual stresses is obtained due to the interaction between the layers caused by an axial force flow which passes through the mandrel, the workpiece and the support to forma closed circuit. To predict the fatigue life it is necessary to know the residual stresses on the entrance and the exit faces immediately to the hole periphery which are considered to be potential crack initiation sites. It has been proved that there are two key moments in the building of an adequate finite element model. The first is modeling of a realistic contact mandrel-workpiece with or without mediator and workpiece-support. The second is a suitable constitutive model of the workpiece material. Six hardening models of low-carbon steel obtained on the basis of a symmetric strain-controlled experiment and half-cycle test data from unidirectional tension experiment have been used consecutively in the finite element model of the process. On the basis of a comparison with experimental results obtained by means of an X-ray diffraction technique it has been established that the nonlinear kinematic hardening model obtained by a strain-controlled cyclic test to achieve a stabilized cycle secures finite element results close to the experimental ones. The chosen finite element model has been compared with simplified ones following the residual circumferential normal stress criterion and its advantages have been proved.