Novel flexible cores in rotary draw bending forming: applied for the commercial vehicle anti-collision beam with rectangular ribbed ((sic)-shaped) section

In this paper, rotary draw bending (RDB) process is used to bend the rectangular ribbed ((sic)-shaped) section profiles into commercial vehicle anti-collision beams. But the bottom plate of the profile will inevitably produce wrinkling defects in the actual processing. Therefore, ABAQUS finite element (FE) software is used to simulate the profile with no mandrel in RDB process to obtain the formation mechanism of the defects. Based on the above result, a novel type of mandrel-novel flexible cores (NFC) is designed. Its innovation is not only perfect for RDB of the rectangular ribbed ((sic)-shaped) section profile but also can play a good role in occasions where the use of ordinary mandrels is limited. All in all, the working occasions are not limited. Moreover, changing the parameters of the mandrel core can achieve any angle bending under the premise of ensuring accuracy, and the cross-sectional distortion is small. Finally, the wrinkling rate at the bending area of the actual anti-collision beam product is measured and calculated, and the result shows that the wrinkling rate Q is less than the standard value that defines the presence or absence of wrinkling, which is regarded as no-wrinkling. And there is a good agreement between simulation and experimental results.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the bending of rectangular ribbed section profiles using the RDB process and develops a novel mandrel solution to address wrinkling defects. Experimental measurements and calculations confirm the effectiveness of the new mandrel design in reducing wrinkling in bending operations.