Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211 (2011) 573577

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Optimization to the tuben contact status of the tube expansion process

Ding Tang , Dayong Li, Yinghong Peng
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The tuben contact status is an important factor inuencing both thermal resistance and service life of
Received 15 June 2010 the tuben heat exchanger. Tube expansion process brings forming defects of gaps at the tuben inter-
Received in revised form faces. And elimination of this forming defect is proved to be difcult. This paper presents a novel method
14 November 2010
in improving the tuben contact status of heat exchanger. From simulation results, distribution of the
Accepted 20 November 2010
contact pressure along the tuben interface can be obtained. Then, an optimization process integrated
Available online 27 November 2010
with FE simulation is established for the sectional prole of the n collar. The n collar is represented
with spline curves. Results show that after the optimization, the gap at the tuben interfaces is basically
Keywords:
Tube expansion
eliminated and the tuben contact status is signicantly improved. Furthermore, anging process for
Tuben heat exchanger the optimized sectional shape of the n collar is discussed.
Process optimization 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Flanging

1. Introduction
Tuben heat exchanger is widely used in air conditioning and
refrigerating (ACR) industries. In the production of tuben heat
exchanger, tube expansion is the key process that forms tight inter-
ferential tuben joints as well as thermal bonds, as shown in
Fig. 1. The forming process has feature of high efciency, cost-
effectiveness and reliability. Efforts have been made to study the
tube expansion process. Chung et al. (2004) studied and opti-
mized the moving velocity of die for tube expanding process in the
manufacturing of heat exchangers. Yokell (1992) studied the tube
expanding process and residual interfacial stress at the tubehole
interface by proposing a concept of two-stage expanding. In these
studies, tuben contact is regarded as a plane strain problem by
assuming full contact along axis of the tube.
Recently studies found that full contact assumption is not
applicable for the tuben joint: a gap exist at the tuben join-
ing interfaces. Experimental studies indicated that joining defects
would cause deterioration of the heat transfer. Critoph et al. (1996)
reported that a gap of 0.01 mm would increase the overall resis-
tance by 10%. ElSherbini and Jacobi (2002) noted that high contact
resistance can disappear as a thin layer of frost lled the gaps
between the ns and tubes.
As the forming quality of the tuben contact status affects
the thermal and mechanical performance of the heat exchanger,
approaches have been introduced to improve the joining status.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 34206794; fax: +86 21 34206313.
E-mail address: tangding@sjtu.edu.cn (D. Tang).
It is reported that increase of the expanding ratio will reduce the
tuben thermal contact resistance with large contact pressure
(Jeong et al., 2006; Cheng and Madhusudana, 2006). But Tang et al.
(2009a) found that too large expanding ratio will cause the inclines
of the n plates. And Tang et al. (2009a) have presented methods
by optimizing the shape of the expansion die. Until now, study on
the tuben contact status is still lacking.
Consequently, in this study, a novel method to enhance the
tuben contact status facing the industrial utilization is intro-
duced. Firstly, contact pressure as well as portions of contact area
between the n collar and the tube is examined with both numer-
ical and experimental methods. Then, an optimization process
integrated with FE calculation is established to design the n col-
lar. Spline curves are used to represent the section shape of the n
collar.
2. Tuben joining status
2.1. Tuben joining process
Tube expansion is the process which joins the ns to the tubes.
The schematic representation illustrating the tube expansion pro-
cess is shown in Fig. 2. Before the forming process, the diameter of
the n hole is slightly larger than that of the expanding die. Ends
of the tubes and the ns are constrained along tubes centre line.
When the die moves forward, the tube undergoes plastic deforma-
tion, and the n collars with L shaped sections are also expanded
by the tubes outer surface. Under carefully designed elastic and
plastic deformation for the n collar and tube, tight t for a ther-
mal band is obtained. The main processing parameter of the tube

0924-0136/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2010.11.010
574 D. Tang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211 (2011) 573577

where Db is the outer diameter of the die, di and do are the inner
and outer diameters of the tube, d is the inner diameter of the n
hole.

2.2. Tuben contact status

In past studies, tuben joining is frequently regarded as a

perfect face-to-face contact due to the difculties in inspection.
However, recent studies (Tang et al., 2009b, 2010) show that it is
not so. Fig. 3 shows the section shapes of the n collars after the
forming process with different expanding ratio. And a gap is cre-
ated between the contact surfaces after tube expansion process. The
variation ange angle of the n collar in Fig. 3 is mainly decided by
the llet of the n collar which is not the cause of the tuben join-
ing status. With the increase of the expanding ratio, the height of
the gap increases. The point contact status can decrease the joints
mechanical strength and also the thermal conductance.
Fig. 1. Tube n heat exchanger and its forming process.
From the distribution of the contact pressure along the n col-
lars, it was concluded that the two point contact mode is almost
inevitable for the current design of the n collar (Tang et al., 2009b).
In order to improve the tuben contact status, the author has
tried several methods in the previous works, such as changing the
expanding ratio and key geometry parameters of the expanding die
(Tang et al., 2009a). However, it indicates that the optimizations to
the processing parameters cannot change the contact mode. There-
fore, in this study, an optimization to the shape of the n collar has
been explored.

3. Optimization to the tuben contact mode

In order to improve the tuben contact mode and eliminate

the gap at the interfaces, a novel method is provided in this section
by optimization to the section shape of the n collar with spline
curves.

3.1. FE model of the tube expansion process

Fig. 2. Tube expanding process.

The FE model for the tuben contact status integrated in the

optimization process to calculate the contact pressure and the con-
expansion is the expanding ratio which is expressed by following tact length is shown in Fig. 4 (1/4 of the tuben structure is
equation: hidden). In the FE model, inner grooved tube is established instead
of traditional at tube, as it is more and more commonly used in
(Db di ) (dfi do )
K(%) = 100 (1) ACR industry. The spiral grooves inside the tube with heat trans-
dfi fer enhancement property change the forming property of the

Fig. 3. Experimental and numerical result of the contact status formed at different expanding ratio: (a) 4.8%; (b) 6.2%; (c) 7.6% (Tang et al., 2010).
 D. Tang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211 (2011) 573577 575

terms of a blending function as


n
P(u) = Ni,k (u)Pi (tk1 u tn+1 ) (3)
i=0

where Pi is a set of control points, Ni,k (u) is the blending function

given as

1 ui u ui+1
Ni,0 (u) = (4)
0

(u ti )Ni,k1 (u) (ti+k u)Ni+1,k1 (u)

Ni,k (u) = (5)
ti+k1 ti ti+k ti+1
In the above equation, ti are knot values and k is the order of the
B-spline curve.

3.3. Optimization process

By representing the B-spline curves, the section shape of the n

Fig. 4. FE model of tube expansion.
tube wall and inuence the tuben residual contact pressure.
As the tube expanding process contains complex contact behav-
ior, explicit iterative algorithm is applied for its character of strong
convergence. A commercially available explicit nite element code,
LS-Dyna is used. Three parts are established in FE model: expanding
tool, inner grooved tube and 14 layers of ns. The tool is assumed
as a rigid body. Key geometry parameters of the tube and the ns
studied in this paper are given in Table 1.
The aim of the optimization is to improve the contact status. The
tuben contact status is described with a parameter of average
contact pressure P, which is dened as
L
1 3.4. Optimization results
P= P(x) dx
L
0 In this study, three schemes are tried to design the section shape.
where L is the length of middle part at the n collar with potential of
contact (m); P(x) is the distribution of the contact pressure (Pa). By
denition of P, quanticational evaluation of the contact pressure
can be done. Optimization aim is to maximize the average tuben
contact pressure P which is dened by Eq. (2).
3.2. Representing of the n collar
collar can be parameterized with coordinates at radial direction of
control points. So the coordinates of the control points are set as
the parameterized optimization objects. A universal non-gradient
based genetic optimization algorithm, NSGA-II, is applied in the
optimization process.
The owchart of the optimization process is shown in Fig. 5.
Initially, the control points of the n collar stay where the section
shape keeps the original shape. Then the FE simulation is carried out
and the average tuben contact pressure P is calculated from the
numerical results of the contact pressure and the contact length.
Then the optimization algorithm provides new value of the coor-
dinate parameter for the position of the control points. And the
geometry model of the FE simulation is changed and the model
rebuilt accordingly. The P is recalculated until the optimization pro-
cess comes convergent. Convergence of the optimization process is
achieved after 300 runs of iterations.
(2)
Scheme 1 uses a spline line to substitute the straight line with a
contact point at the middle. Optimization object of Scheme 1 is the
radial coordinate of the point 1, X1. Schemes 2 and 3 use spine line
Initial position of the
control points

As the section shape of the n collar deforms unfavorably dur- FE model

ing the tube expansion process, an inverse design to the shape is
considered to compensate the unfavorable deformation. The sec- Remodel
tion shape of the n collar is chosen as the optimization object. FE simulation
However, it is generally composed of a straight line and two l-
New position of
lets at both sides, so the shape should be parameterize before the
optimization. In this study, the section shape of the n collar is the control points
structured with B-spline curves. A B-spline curve is represented in Contact pressure Contact length

Optimisation
Table 1 P
Key seizes of the structures. calculation
Groove conguration Value
No.
Convergent
Outer diameter, do (mm) 7.0
Inner diameter, di (mm) 6.16 Yes.
Tube
Total wall thickness, ta (mm) 0.42
Flat wall thickness, tf (mm) 0.26 Position of the control points
Fin thickness, tf (mm) 0.1
Fin
Hole diameter, d (mm) 7.2 Fig. 5. Optimization ow.
576 D. Tang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211 (2011) 573577
Fig. 6. Sectional design of the n collar before and after the optimization with
different schemes: (a) Scheme 1; (b) Scheme 2; (c) Scheme 3.
to substitute both the straight line and the llet with three control
points. Optimization objects of Scheme 2 are the coordinates of the
point 1 and point 2. Point 3 moves together with point 2, which
keeps the section of the n collar a symmetric structure. Optimiza-
tion objects of Scheme 3 are the coordinates of the three control
points which move independently.
The shapes of the three schemes after the optimization process
are shown at the right side of Fig. 6. Generally, the sections are
redesigned to be up concave. Among the three schemes, shape of
Fig. 7. Comparison of the tuben contact status between original structure and optimized designs: (a) original design; (b) Scheme 1; (c) Scheme 2; (d) Scheme 3.
Table 2
Optimization results.
Scheme Increasing of the Increasing of the average
contact length (%) contact pressure (%)
1 25.80 6.5
2 22.19 41.7
3 25.36 34.7
Scheme 1 is not smooth. Shape of Schemes 2 and 3 are close to each
other.
Results of the tuben contact status before and after the opti-
mization process are shown in Fig. 7. On the whole, the contact
lengths are signicantly improved with the optimized designs. The
contact length is increased obviously and the gap at the interfaces
is basically eliminated. For Scheme 1, the gap is reduced as the
straight line of the section shape replaced by a concave up curve.
But as the curve is not smooth, the distribution of the contact pres-
sure is discontinuous. Results of Schemes 2 and 3 are close to each
other, and their sectional contact statuses are relatively consistent.
So the designs of Schemes 2 and 3 are more rational than that of the
design 1.Combining the FE results in Fig. 7 with Eq. (2), the average
contact pressure of the three schemes after tube expansion process
can be compared. From the comparison of Table 2, Scheme 2 has
the largest tuben contact pressure which increases 41.7% from
the original design.
4. Rening process after the anging of the n collar
As the tuben contact status is improved with optimized n
collar, it brings difculties to the forming method of the curve-
shaped sectional shape. So in this section, anging process of the
n collar with optimized shape is discussed.
4.1. Design of the rening process
Generally, the n collar is manufactured with progressive
stamping die, including the stamping process of drawing, deep
drawing, punching and anging. The traditional process is designed
for the n collar with straight section, as shown in Fig. 8(a). In order
to obtain the curved section of the n collar, a new process of shape
rening can be added to the progressive stamping process. Design
of the die for the shape rene is shown in Fig. 8(b). The sides of
the lower and upper die are according to the curved design of the
 D. Tang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 211 (2011) 573577
Fig. 8. Flanging process of the n collar: (a) traditional design and (b) shape rening process.
Fig. 9. Shape rening process: (a) FE model and (b) simulation result.
n collar. During the stamping process, the inner surface of the n
collar will attach to the outer surface of the dies and rene the sec-
tional shape of the n collar. The shape rening can be added as the
last process to the progressive stamping which brings minimum
adjustment to the traditional manufacture process of the ns.
4.2. FE simulation of the rening process
In order to test the design of the shape rening process of the
n collar, especially the die-attaching of the n collar which mainly
inuences the forming quality, an FE simulation is done. As is shown
in Fig. 9(a), the side surfaces of the up and the lower dies are
designed according to the optimization results of Scheme 2 in Sec-
tion 3. Fig. 9(b) shows the section shape of the n collar after the
numerical calculation. The stamping pressing on the n collar can
attach the inner side of the n collar to the sides of the dies and
form the desired curved shape. It proves that the new design of the
rening process is applicable.
5. Conclusions
A novel numerical method in improving the tuben contact
status of the heat exchanger by optimizing the sectional shape of
the n collar is established. An optimization method of the tuben
contact status integrated with FE simulation is discussed. Results
show that after the optimization, the gap at the tuben inter-
faces is basically eliminated. The tuben contact status is more
rational and the tuben average contact pressure is signicantly
improved.
(1) Method of representing the section shape B-spline curves is
applicable for the thin-walled structure. The section shape can
be controlled with several control points and shape optimiza-
tion of the thin-walled structure can be carried out.
(2) Optimization to the n collar integrated with FE simulation
and spline line construction is an effective method to improve
the tuben contact status. After the optimization, the gap at
the tuben interfaces is basically eliminated, and the contact
pressure can be increased by 41.7%.
577
(3) The optimized sectional shape of the n collar can be formed
by adding a shape rening process to the progressive stamping
process. The FE results show that the new design of the rening
process is applicable.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support
of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 50634010
and 50821003), Shanghai Science & Technology Projects (Nos.
09JC1407000 and 1010QH1401400), Program for New Century
Excellent Talents in University (NCET-07-0545) and Shanghai Post-
doctoral Sustentation Fund (No. 10R21414300). The authors also
appreciate the support of the Program of Introducing Talents of
Discipline to Universities (No. B06012) and Research Fund of State
Key Lab of MSV, China (Grant No. MSV-MS-2010-05).
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