Journal of Materials Processing Technology 151 (2004) 203–207

Hydroforming of typical hollow components

S.J. Yuan∗ , G. Liu, X.R. Huang, X.S. Wang, W.C. Xie, Z.R. Wang
School of Material Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, PR China

Abstract

Five hollow components with complex cross-sections, including two automotive parts, were formed successfully in a hydroforming press
with a maximum pressure of 400 MPa, under computer control. The thickness distributions are discussed in detail for every component, in
particular for a chassis part. The materials of these five components cover aluminium alloy, stainless steel and mild steel and the application
fields involve the aircraft, aerospace and automotive industries. Among these components, the maximum diameter of one hydroformed
part is 161 mm and the maximum thickness is 4 mm. For parts with a greater expansion ratio, more than 50%, or low formability materials
such as aluminium alloy, wrinkled tubular blanks can be used as preforms to form hollow components. By using this method, material is
first accumulated in the expanding area by the formation of wrinkles, and then the wrinkles are flattened to shape the part by increasing
the internal pressure in the calibration stage. The important thing point is to obtain “useful” wrinkles instead of “dead” wrinkles.
© 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Keywords: Hydroforming; Hollow component; Internal high pressure forming

1. Introduction 2. Hydroforming press at HIT

Tube hydroforming or internal high pressure forming is
a metal forming process in which a tube is expanded into a
pre-designed shape by applying internal pressure and axial
feeding [1]. With the advancement in high pressures up to
400 MPa and computer control, it has become a powerful
process for manufacturing various hollow components, es-
pecially automotive parts [2,3]. Compared with stamped and
welded structures, its distinct advantage is that lightweight
components with variable closed sections can be formed in-
tegrally so that the number of parts and the weight is reduced
and the stiffness is improved.
A hydroforming press with a maximum pressure 400 MPa
was designed and manufactured at Harbin Institute of Tech-
nology (HIT). Researches have been done on process fun-
damentals [4], hydroforming of aluminium alloy parts [5]
and control of wrinkles in tube hydroforming [6]. The de-
velopment of the hydroforming of engine cradles is ongoing
at HIT. This paper introduces new achievements in the field
of tube hydroforming and considers potential applications
in China.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-451-8641-8776;
fax: +86-451-8641-4751.
E-mail address: syuan@public.hr.hl.cn (S.J. Yuan).
The hydroforming press designed and manufactured at
HIT in 2000 is shown in Fig. 1. It is the first internal
high pressure forming machine in China. This hydroforming
press consists of a hydraulic press for closing the die, two
horizontal cylinders, a pressure intensifier, a hydraulic drive
system and a computer control system. Its major parameters
are as following: maximum pressure 400 MPa, closing force
10,000 kN and horizontal axial force 1500 kN.
3. Hydroforming of hollow components with circular
section
3.1. Bottle-shaped part
Fig. 2 shows the dimensions of a bottle-shaped hollow
part. The material used in the experiment is carbon steel with
a carbon content of 0.2 wt.%. A tube of 40 mm diameter (d0 )
and 2.5 mm thickness (t0 ) was used to form the part with
the maximum diameter (D) of 68 mm in an expansion ratio
(D/d0 ) of 1.7.
Because the expansion ratio is large and elongation of the
steel used is only around 24%, a preform with a reasonable
shape is necessary to smoothly form this part and keep the
thickness relatively uniform. Except for using preforms, an
alternative method is the accumulation of material in the

0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2004.04.040
204 S.J. Yuan et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 151 (2004) 203–207

Fig. 3. Bottle-shaped part: (a) preform with useful wrinkles; (b) final part;
(c) measured points for thickness.

Fig. 1. The hydroforming press at HIT.

original blanks are laser-welding pipes with an outside di-
ameter (d0 ) of Ø161 mm and a thickness (t0 ) of 1.5 mm. The
maximum diameter of the expended rib is 190 mm. Due to
the ratio (d0 /t0 ) of the pipe being 107, it is so thin that seal-
ing of the pipe ends is very difficult. Another difficulty is
that folding (Fig. 4(b)) occurs easily because there is not a
zone of gradually changing diameter between the expanded
rib and the feeding zone. However, a good part without fold-
ing can be obtained if the proper die structure is used. It
can be seen from Fig. 4(c) that the minimum thickness is
Fig. 2. Geometry of the bottle-shaped part (dimensions: mm). 1.308 mm, this thinning of 12.8% being at the mid-point
(point F) of the expanded rib: there is also thinning at the
transition points (point E and point G) between the radii and
expanding area by forming wrinkles. The wrinkles are then the expanded rib.
flattened to shape the part by increasing the internal pressure
in the calibration stage. In this case, the wrinkled tube can
be considered as one kind of preform. The important point Table 1
is to obtain “useful” wrinkles instead of “dead” wrinkles. Thickness distributions in the longitudinal direction (unit: mm)
How to obtain useful wrinkles will be introduced in a future Point Thickness (mm)
paper.
Fig. 3 shows a tubular blank with “useful” wrinkles and 1 2.54
2 2.53
the final sound part formed by this preform with “useful” 3 2.52
wrinkles. Table 1 shows the thickness distributions in the 4 2.40
longitudinal direction, the measurement points being shown 5 2.25
in Fig. 3(c). 6 2.04
It can be seen from Table 1 that the maximum thickness 7 1.96
8 1.96
is 2.66 mm (point 1) at the left feeding zone, this thickness 9 2.09
increase of 3.58% being due to the actual original thickness 10 2.10
of 2.57 mm; there is thinning in the forming zone, the min- 11 2.04
imum thickness being 1.92 mm (point 12), i.e. a maximum 12 2.05
thinning of 25.5%. 13 2.32
14 2.51
15 2.55
3.2. Stainless steel joint pipe 16 2.55
17 2.53
Fig. 4 shows an omega-shaped joint pipe formed by hy- 18 2.60
19 2.66
droforming. The tube material is stainless steel SUS304. The
 S.J. Yuan et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 151 (2004) 203–207 205

Fig. 5. An aluminum alloy transition tube.

used as the preforms to form this part. The minimum thick-

ness at the big end is 1.32 mm (original thickness 1.5 mm),
i.e. a thinning of 12%.

4. Hydroforming of automotive part

4.1. Chassis part

Fig. 6 shows a chassis part to be used for a car. There are

three typical cross-sections from one end to the other. Nine
steps were needed to make this part by the conventional
stamping process. By hydroforming, only three steps are
necessary, i.e. bending → hydroforming → end cutting. A

Table 3
Measured thickness of section A–A
Points Thickness (mm)

1 3.55
2 3.51
3 3.54
Fig. 4. An omega-shaped joint pipe: (a) joint pipe; (b) folding; (c) thickness 4 3.72
distribution (dimensions: mm). 5 3.81
6 3.72
7 3.71
3.3. Aluminium alloy transition tube 8 3.74
9 3.74
Fig. 5 shows a transition joint pipe used for connecting 10 3.76
two tubes of different diameters. The tube material is an alu- 11 3.64
12 3.55
minium alloy with 95% Al and 2.21% Mg. The elongation 13 3.49
of this aluminium alloy is 18% and its formability is lower. 14 3.47
The outside diameter of the small end is Ø65 mm, as same 15 3.49
as the original tube diameter, and that of big end is Ø88 mm. 16 3.60
The expansion ratio is 35%, which is about twice the elon- 17 3.76
18 3.86
gation of the tube material. Wrinkled tubular blanks were 19 3.79
20 3.82
Table 2 21 3.81
Dimensions of cross-section A–A 22 3.84
23 3.97
h (mm) W (mm) R (mm) r (mm)
24 3.82
Design value 58 ± 0.5 70 ± 1 10 ± 3 10 ± 3 25 3.63
Measured value 58.24 69.14 12.5 13 26 3.52
206 S.J. Yuan et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 151 (2004) 203–207

Fig. 6. An automotive chassis part: (a) final part; (b) typical cross-sections; (c) thickness measuring points on section A–A.

Fig. 7. Turning arm part: (a) dimensions (mm); (b) final part.
 S.J. Yuan et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 151 (2004) 203–207
tube with a nominal diameter of Ø70 mm (actual diameter
70.1 mm) and thickness of 4 mm (actual thickness 3.99 mm)
was used to form this chassis part.
The measured profile dimensions and thickness values of
cross-section A–A are shown in Tables 2 and 3, respectively,
but are not presented for other cross-sections due to limi-
tations on the length of the paper. The measurement points
for thickness are shown in Fig. 6(c).
The dimensions of cross-section A–A can meet the design
requirements, as well as those of cross-section B–B and
cross-section C–C.
It can be seen from Table 3 for section A–A that more
thinning occurs in the area around the radius represented by
R and that the minimum thickness is 3.47 mm (point 14), i.e.
a thinning of 13%. Except the points around radius R, the
thicknesses at other points is greater than 3.60 mm, i.e. the
thinning is less than 10%. For section B–B, the minimum
thickness is 3.53 mm, i.e. a thinning of 11.5%. For section
C–C, the minimum thickness is 3.68 mm i.e. a thinning of
7.8%.
4.2. Turning arm part
Fig. 7 shows a turning arm part used for a car. A dif-
ficulty in forming this part is that there is a large perime-
ter difference between section A–A and section C–C: the
perimeter of section A–A is 124.82 mm and that of section
C–C is 218.27 mm, which is about 1.75 times that of sec-
tion A–A. The part cannot be formed from a simple tube so
that a preform is necessary. The part shown in Fig. 7(b) was
formed successfully by using the bottle-shaped part shown
in Fig. 3(b).
5. Concluding remarks
Hollow components with complex cross-sections used in
the aircraft, aerospace and automotive industries can be man-
ufactured by the hydroforming process. Compared with the
conventional stamping process, the distinct advantage of hol-
207
low components hydroforming is that lightweight compo-
nents with variable closed sections can be formed integrally
so that the number of parts is reduced and the stiffness is
improved.
For a part with a greater expansion ratio or for lower
formability materials such as aluminium alloy, wrinkled
tubular blanks can be used as the preforms to form hollow
components. By using this method, materials are first accu-
mulated in an expanding area by forming wrinkles and then
the wrinkles are flattened to shape the part upon increasing
the internal pressure in the calibration stage. The key issue
is to obtain “useful” wrinkles instead of “dead” wrinkles.
Acknowledgements
This paper was supported financially by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (project number:
59975021) and project of China First Auto Works. The
authors would like to take this opportunity to express their
sincere appreciation.
References
[1] F. Dohmann, Ch. Hartl, Tube hydroforming—research and practical
application, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 71 (1997) 174–186.
[2] M. Koc, T. Altan, An overall review of the tube hydroforming (THF)
technology, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 108 (2001) 384–393.
[3] F. Vollertsen, T. Prange, M. Sander, Hydroforming: need, develop-
ments and perspectives, in: Proceedings of the Sixth International
Conference on Technology of Plasticity, Nuremberg, Germany, 1999,
pp. 1197–1209.
[4] S.J. Yuan, X.S. Wang, Fundamentals and application of tube hydro-
forming, Chin. J. Mech. Eng. 38 (2002) 12–25 (in Chinese).
[5] S.J. Yuan, L. Lang, X. Wang, Z.R. Wang, Experimental and numer-
ical simulation of aluminum tube hydroforming, in: Proceedings of
the Second International Conference on Hydroforming, Fellbach, Ger-
many, November 6–7, 2001, pp. 339–347.
[6] S.J. Yuan, X.S. Wang, G. Liu, L.H. Lang, Z.R. Wang, Research on
hydroforming of tubular components with changeable cross-sections,
in: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Technology
of Plasticity, Yokohama, Japan, 2002, pp. 1495–1500.