Application of simulated annealing method to pressure and force loading optimization in tube hydroforming process

The most important parameters in success of tube hydroforming process are internal pressure and axial force loading paths. Theoretical calculations and finite element trial-and-error simulations to find the optimum loading paths are so time-consuming and costly. In this paper, pressure and force loading paths in tube hydroforming process are investigated and optimized using Simulated Annealing optimization method. The final aim is to obtain the optimal loading paths for tube hydroforming of axisymmetric geometries under a failure criterion based on the maximum allowable thinning and von-Mises stress. Simulated Annealing algorithm is directly incorporated into the non-linear structural finite element code ANSYS/LS-DYNA to analyze the forming parameters. This novel approach is validated by experiments on ASTM C11000 copper tubes. The results are also compared and verified with another literature, in which a good correlation is obtained. Less thinning and better shape conformation is attained using the optimized parameters.