Deformation analysis for the shear bending process of circular tubes

In order to minimize the space of bent tubular parts, a bending technology with small bending radii has been requested recently. Tube shear bending is a suitable technology to realize a considerable small bending radius. In this paper, the procedure of tube shear bending has been introduced. Moreover, an elasto-plastic 3D finite element simulation has been conducted to analyze the forming process. Also the deformation behavior of tube has been investigated. For this purpose, tube strain distribution has been illustrated. The theoretical values of strains have been obtained and compared with the simulated results. In order to show the validity of simulation, the FEM results of tube thickness strain have been compared with the experimental ones. The results of this paper clarify the deformation characteristic of tube during shear bending process. These results demonstrate that the forming process is under a combination of shearing and bending deformations.