Effect of hardening exponent on tube bending

There are more than 10 kinds of bending, for example press bending, stretch bending, stretch draw bending and others. There are many studies about characteristics of tube bending. But there is no study about the effects of tubular material property on bending. Therefore, we try to examine the effect of material property about hardening exponent on tube bending. Bending radius, strain distribution, springback and flatness of tube are examined on press bending by FEM (finite element method) and experimental results. The results are about the effects of tubular material property such as hardening exponent n. The effect of hardening exponent is clear in the tube bending in the study. The hardening exponent n does not have an effect on springback, thickness strain distributions and flatness ratio at the same bending radius of same tube dimension. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.