Chapter 15

Simulation of Multi-step Tube Hot Gas

Forming Process of a UHSS Torsion
Beam

Shangwen Ruan, Jianping Zhao, Zhenli Mi, Lan Su, and Pengzhi Cheng

Abstract Ultra-high strength steel can significantly improve the safety and
lightweight of vehicles, especially for the closed-profile components. In this study,
a novel process simulation of multi-step tube hot metal gas forming (HMGF) of a
V-shape torsion beam is conducted. The aim of this paper is to provide the insight into
the influence of process variables, such as pre-heating condition, gas pressure and
tool temperature, on the formability, hardening and component behavior. The press
hardening steel used is hot-rolled BR1500 steel and the stress-strain relationships
under different temperatures are investigated for the thermo-mechanical simulation.
A consistent simulation model with all relevant sub-stages is then established in LS-
DYNA software. Component geometry, wall thinning, hardness and microstructure
distributions are achieved in the simulation and the forming parameter dependency is
analyzed. And the forming equipment is introduced. The hot gas forming step is the
most complicated process, and is carried out in a nitrogen gas environment, which
prevents oxidation of the parts after heating.

Keywords Ultra-high strength steel · Tube hot gas forming · Torsion beam ·
Multi-step forming

S. Ruan · Z. Mi (B) · L. Su
Institute of Engineering Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing
100083, China
e-mail: [email protected]
J. Zhao
Guangxi Automobile Holdings Limited, Liuzhou 545000, China
P. Cheng
Hangyu Intelligent Manufacture Limited, Beijing 100089, China

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 183
J. Xu and K. M. Pandey (eds.), Mechanical Engineering and Materials,
Mechanisms and Machine Science 100,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68303-0_15
184 S. Ruan et al.

15.1 Introduction

The use of high strength steel sheets increases mainly for body-in-white parts for the
reduction of weight and improvement of strength. Hot stamping is common practice
in automotive industry for cover panels [1].
On the other hand, the rigidity takes advantages of hollow structures. Tube hydro-
forming is increasingly employed to manufacture hollow parts of high strength steels,
but it is not easy for severe requirement of equipment, small ductility of materials
and the inevitable spring-back [2].
Warm tube hydroforming is then employed to heighten the formability of high
strength steels. But using oil and water as pressure media limits the heating
temperature below 300 ◦ C [3].
Hot metal gas forming (HMGF) is an innovative forming technology whose
concepts are based on tube hydroforming and hot to remove the limitation of the
heating temperature. HMGF process is coupled thermo-mechanical problem process.
The heating transferring could alter the flow-stress of the materials and a large cooling
rate is also necessary for martensite formation [4, 5].
Ferritic stainless steel showed at least 55% expansion at high temperatures during
bugling [6]. Then, the tube hot gas forming was introduced into the automotive indus-
tries by Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU [7–9].
Induction heating and additional heating elements was used for uniform temperature
distribution [10].
However, it is difficult to control the internal pressure in HMGF process since
the charging time is less than 1 s [11]. Thus, a simplified controlling strategy using
resistance heating and filling the air into seal tubes was introduced by Maeno et al.
[12], so that the tube could be bulged at low flow stress and the controlling of the
internal pressure is avoided.
The torsion beam is an important part in the rear suspension of the chassis. Its
torsion resistance and stiffness have always been crucial to the system. The tube
hydroformed torsion beams have been widely employed in the industry. A new gas
forming process of ultra-high strength steel hollow parts using air filled into sealed
tubes and resistance heating to omit the subsequent heat treatment was developed
[13].
Since direct HMGF process may induce a flange on the torsion beam, Zhang et al.
conducted a simulation study on an indirect HMGF process with furnace heating.
When the bugling finished, it showed the lowest temperature on the part was about
500 ◦ C, which is below the martensite start temperature [14].
In this paper, an indirect hot gas metal forming process for a V-shape torsion beam
is introduced. An in-situ resistance heating method is employed to avoid the heat loss
during transition. The hot-rolled BR1500 press-harden steel is used in the process.
The consistent simulation model with all relevant sub-stages is then established in
LS-DYNA software and the reasonable pieces with high precision and low thinning
rate of 12% could be obtained.
15 Simulation of Multi-step Tube Hot Gas Forming Process … 185

15.2 Indirect Hot Gas Forming of a Torsion Beam

In the present study, the ultimate state of a V-shape torsion beam is depicted in
Fig. 15.1. It has a bent axial line and complex section shapes along it. The desired
diameter in the ends is much larger than that in the middle, which leads to a large
expansion. The initial thickness of the tube is 3.5 mm to match the requirement
of large stress level during severe conditions. The geometry parameters of the tube
blank are listed in Table 15.1. A multi-step indirect HMGF process is necessary in
the study. The work-flow scheme is shown in Fig. 15.2.
Firstly, end expansion is conducted to enlarge the diameters of the ends on the
machine tools with two hydraulic cylinders, two expansion punches and slide rails.
Secondly, the press bending is conducted to obtain the bent axial line on a 3000
kN CNC hydraulic press. In addition, the pre-forming process aims to achieve the
V-shape on the component as that the flange could be prevented. It is conducted

Fig. 15.1 Desired V-shape torsion beam

Table 15.1 Geometry of the tube

Thickness Length Outer diameter
3.5 mm 160 mm 98 mm

Fig. 15.2 Process scheme of indirect HMGF

186 S. Ruan et al.

Fig. 15.3 Die tools of hot gas forming

on a 15,000 kN CNC hydraulic press. Finally, the hot gas forming step is the most
complicated process, which is also conducted on a 15,000 KN CNC hydraulic press.
The apparatus is shown in Fig. 15.3. The forming cavity is sealed by the upper and
lower dies with sealing and gas curtains, so that a Nitrogen gas environment can be
obtained. In this case, oxidation of heated steel tube could be prevented.
Two forming stations are assembled in the die cavity. One is the resistance heating
& bugling spot. On this station, each end of the die cavity has a semicircular copper
electrode so that the tube can firmly grasp the tube and heating efficient is improved.
Considering that the heating rate is highly influenced by the resistance of the tube, a
low voltage and high current power supply is employed with the 12 V/10000A. The
pre-formed tube can be rapidly heated up to 900 ◦ C in 30 s, as shown in Fig. 15.4.
It is notable that the highest temperature of the electrode is about 200 ◦ C so there is
not a risk of melting.
After heating, then die closes in several seconds and the tube is bugling up in the
same station with the punch and die less in 1 s. The gas up to 70 MPa pressure is
filled into the pre-formed tube and the initial internal pressure of tube is not controlled
during bugling. The parameters of the gas system are listed in Table 15.2.

Fig. 15.4 Resistance heating the pre-formed tube

15 Simulation of Multi-step Tube Hot Gas Forming Process … 187

Table 15.2 Gas system

Maximum pressure Maximum volume Minimum open
parameters
distance
70 MPa 8L 450 mm

After the bugling, an in-die quenching is conducted in the same spot for 20 s.
In this step, the high-pressure gas supplement keeps. The cooling water system is
design as shown in Fig. 15.5. The diameter of the water ducts is 10 mm and the
displacement from the ducts to the surface is 8 mm. The water velocity of the inlet
is about 3 m/s, which makes it 25 L/s. Thus, A 120 kW screw water-cooled chiller
is employed.
Then the die opens, and the formed part is translated to the other spot. In this spot,
the tube with a residual temperature is cooling to the room temperature in a second
process routine to further prevent oxidation of the tube. The entire process time line
is shown in Fig. 15.6.

Fig. 15.5 Cooling water system

Fig. 15.6 Sequence of the entire process

188 S. Ruan et al.

15.3 Material Description

Hot rolled BR1500 press harden steel is employed in the study. Its mechanical proper-
ties are significantly influenced by the temperature and strain rate. It would undergo a
phase transformation to austinite during heating process. The material has a Young’s
modulus about 210 GPa at room temperature and decreases along with the tempera-
ture increasing, dropping down to 120 GPa at 1000 ◦ C. On the other hand, the flow
stress of the material is elevated by higher strain rate [15]. Determined flow stress of
the austenite between 600 and 900 ◦ C at different strain rates are shown in Fig. 15.7.
Higher strain rate leads to a high flow stress.
Within this temperature window the BR1500 exhibits an excellent formability
as a consequence of the reduced flow stress at elevated temperatures. The in-die

Fig. 15.7 Material

properties of BR1500 of
different temperatures and
strain rates
Young's modulus (GPa)

0 200 400 600 800 1000

Temperature ( C)
25 C 0.1 /s
500 C 0.1 /s
600 600 C 0.1 /s
600 C 1 /s
900 C 0.1 /s
True stress (MPa)

900 C 1 /s

400

200

0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Plastic strain
15 Simulation of Multi-step Tube Hot Gas Forming Process … 189

quenching results in a phase transformation from austenite to martensite and signif-

icant increase of the final strength of the part. A cooling rate of at least 27 K/s is
essential for preventing bainitic phase transformation according to the continuous
time temperature transformation (TTT) diagram. To achieve a full martensitic, an
increase of the minimum cooling rate required for martensite transformation up to
35 K/s is necessary [16]. Thus, components with homogeneous mechanical proper-
ties at a final high tensile strength level of above 1500 MPa and a sufficient remaining
ductility of 6–8% uniform elongation as well.

15.4 Simulation of Indirect HGMF

The simulations are performed using LS-DYNA R10.0 finite element codes, which
has several features that are useful to FE modeling hot forming [17, 18]:
Heat conduction, convection and radiation transfer of tube blank before tool to
part contact.
Contact conductance between tools and parts during forming, which is a pressure
dependent;
Phase transform and temperature dependency are considered in UHSS material
model.
The middle layer of tube is modeled as Belytschko-Tsay shell elements with the
size of 5 mm. The dies are modeled as rigid bodies. The thickness of the tube is
considered in the simulation while that of the dies are not considered. In three cold
forming processes, MAT_PIECEWISE_LINEAR PLASITICY is used for the tube
with flow curve at 1 /s. The friction coefficients between the tube and dies is set to
be 0.15.

Fig. 15.8 Thinning contour after end expansion

190 S. Ruan et al.

Figure 15.8 shows the thinning contour of the thickness thinning after end expan-
sion. A 5% thinning is observed at the both ends while a slight thicken is found in
the middle region. Besides, the thinning contour after press bending is also shown in
Fig. 15.9. In this step, the thickness change concentrates in the middle region. The
inner side of the bending direction is thickened further while the wall thickness of
the out side reduces about 3%. No obvious risk of crack nor wrinkle is found in the
bending step.
In addition, the thickness distribution of the pre-forming is shown in Fig. 15.10.
It can be seen that the most thinning area has a thickness more than 3.2 mm, which is
about 8% thinning. And most thickened areas locate on the top of the V-shape in the
inner side of the bending, where the material flowing is hindered by the die surface.
The cold forming simulation result is transferred to the hot gas forming simula-
tion with a dynain file, which includes positions of the nodes, the stress and strain
information of the elements, as well as the thickness.

Fig. 15.9 Current thinning contour after press bending

Fig. 15.10 Thickness distribution after cold forming process

15 Simulation of Multi-step Tube Hot Gas Forming Process … 191

A thermo-mechanical coupled numerical model is developed involving material

properties and thermo physical parameters in detail. MAT_UHS_STEEL is employed
in simulation with the flow curves at 1 /s since the bugling is a rapid process. The
material model developed by P. Akerstrom is suited for the hot forming process
that the phase transformation happens [15]. A fully austenitized phase is assumed
to be obtained when the initial temperature of the blank is higher than 900 \degcIt
is notable to be mention that the initial stress and strain state from the previous
simulation should be removed in case of error in calculation. The phase distribution
during cooling is calculated by solving the rate equation for each phase transition as
Eq. (15.1):

X˙k = gk (G, C, Tk , Q k ) f k (X k ) (15.1)

where gk is a function dependent on the grain number G, the chemical composition

C, the temperature T and the activation Q. Besides, the functionf is dependent on
the actual phase Xt = xk /xeq as Eq. (15.2):

f k (X k ) = X k0.4(X k −1) (1 − X k )0.4X k , k = 2, 3, 4 (15.2)

where k = 2,3,4 present the ferrite, pearlite and bainite respectively. The true amount
of martensite as defined in Eq. (15.3) is modelled by using the true amount of the
austenite left after the bainite phase:
 
x5 = x1 1 − e−α(M S−T ) (15.3)

where x_1 is the true amount of the austenite, \alpha is a material constant and MS
is the martensite start temperature. It is notable to be mention that the initial stress
and strain state from the previous simulation should be removed in case of errors in
calculating MS. In addition, the material model can provide the further information
in history variables such as phase amounts, yield strength.
The thermal properties of the tube are defined using
MAT_THERMAL_ISOTROPIC_TD_LC keywords, which allows isotropic thermal
properties that are temperature dependent specified by load curves to be defined,
which is shown in Fig. 15.11.
The thermal contact between blank and tools are implemented using
CONTACT_FORMING_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE_THERMAL_FRICTION
keyword, which can define the mechanical friction coefficients and thermal contact
conductance as functions of temperature and pressure, as shown in Fig. 15.12. The
process flow is illustrated as:
Heating of the blank to 900 °C;
Gravity loading applied for tube dropping into the die cavity for 3 s;
Die closing for 5 s;
Bulging time for 0.5 s with the pressure increases up to 50 MPa, and
192 S. Ruan et al.

1000 50
Capacity
900
Conductivity
800 40

Heat conductivity (Wm-1K-1)

Heat capacity (Jkg-1K-1)
700

600 30

500

400 20

300

200 10

100

0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Temperture ( C)

Fig. 15.11 Heat capacity and conductivity versus temperature

Quench time 20 s.
Figure 15.13 shows the thickness distribution in the blank with a range from
4.169 mm (dark blue) to 3.169 mm (red) after bugling. The cross-section views can
also be found and they demonstrate the fitness of the part to the die is quite satisfying.
The material phase fractions distribution calculated in the simulation after in-die
quenching is shown in Fig. 15.14, as well as the residual temperature. It can be seen
that the edge on the top of the V-shape has the higher residual temperature. When
most of the part has been quenched down to 100 °C, it is still above 200 °C. It indicates
that the cooling rate on this region may not reach the martensite transforming rate.
It is agreed by the phase distribution. Although most of the part is martensite phase,
but bainite transformation occurs on the edge region. The result implies that the
geometry of the die has caused a problem for cooling and it should be improved.

15.5 Conclusions

A numerical simulation the studies on indirect hot metal gas forming process for a
V-shape torsion beam are performed using BR1500 press-harden steel. An integrated
manufacturing system is used. Based on the result, the guidance to the design of the
part and die will be implemented as well. Practical Hot Metal Gas Forming tests
will be conducted soon and future studies would focus on the cyclical production
processes.
15 Simulation of Multi-step Tube Hot Gas Forming Process … 193

140 1.0
Transfer coefficient
120 Friction coefficient 0.8

transfer coefficient (Wm-2K-1) 100

Friction coefficent
Effective heat

0.6
80

60 0.4

40
0.2
20

0 0.0

Temperature ( C)
5000
heat transfer conductance (Wm-2K-1)

4000

3000

2000

1000

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Pressure (MPa)

Fig. 15.12 Contact interface parameters

194 S. Ruan et al.

Fig. 15.13 Thickness distribution and cross-section fitness of the part after bugling process

Fig. 15.14 Residual temperature and material phase fractions

Acknowledgements 1. High-end CNC Machine Tools and Basic Manufacturing Equipment (No.
2019ZX04002030).
2. National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFB0304404).

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