Giuseppe Ingarao

Integration of gradient based and response surface methods to develop a cascade optimisation strategy for Y-shaped tube hydroforming process design

In the last years a strong research effort was produced in order to develop and design new forming technologies able to overcome the typical drawbacks of traditional forming operations. Among such new technologies, hydroforming proved to be one of the most promising. The design of tube hydroforming operations is mainly aimed to prevent bursting or buckling occurrence and such issues can be pursued only if a proper control of both material feeding history and internal pressure path during the process is performed. In this paper, a proper optimisation strategy was developed on Y-shaped tube hydroforming process which is characterized by a quite complex process mechanics with respect to axi-symmetric tube hydroforming operations. The design procedure was aimed to properly calibrate the internal pressure histories. The basic idea, in this paper, is to integrate a steepest descent method with a moving least squares approach in order to reach the optimal internal pressure curve in the hydroforming of an Y-shaped steel tube. Thus, a cascade optimisation procedure was implemented which consisted of two optimisation steps: the former is focused on the application of a steepest descent method, the latter is based on a response surface approach utilising a moving least squares approximation. The cascade procedure was driven by the will to reduce the total number of numerical simulations necessary to reach the optimum with respect to other optimisation methods.

Influence of Material-Related Aspects of Additive and Subtractive Ti-6Al-4V Manufacturing on Energy Demand and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Summary The additive manufacturing of metal parts represents a promising process that could be used alongside traditional manufacturing methods. The research scenario in this field is still largely unexplored, as far as the technological solutions adopted to integrate different processes are concerned and in terms of environmental and economic impact assessment. In this article, an electron beam melting (EBM) process and a machining process have been analyzed and compared using a cradle-to-grave life cycle–based approach. The production of components made of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy has been assumed as a case study. The proposed methodology is able to account for all of the main factors of influence on energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions when the component shape is varied. The results prove that, besides the direct energy intensity of the manufacturing processes, the impacts related to material usage are usually dominant. Therefore, when complex geometries have to be manufactured, the additive manufacturing approach could be the best strategy, if it enables a larger amount of material savings than conventional machining. Vice versa, when a small amount of material has to be machined off, the high energy intensity of an EBM process has a negative effect on the performance of the process.

Electric Energy Consumption Analysis of SPIF Processes

Manufacturing processes, as used for discrete part manufacturing, are responsible for a substantial part of the environmental impact of products, but are still poorly documented in terms of environmental footprint. A thorough analysis on the causes affecting the environmental impact in metal forming processes, especially the innovative but very energy intensive sheet metal forming technologies required to form light-weight products, is nowadays necessary. Therefore, this paper presents an energy consumption analysis, including a power and time study, of Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) processes. First, the influence of the most relevant process parameters (e.g. feed rate, step down) as well as the material forming itself are analysed regarding the power demand. Moreover, a comparative study and related energy efficiency assay are carried out on two different machine tools. As the forming time proves to be the dominant factor for the total energy consumption, from environmental point of view, the overall results show many similarities with conventional machining processes. Finally, this paper reports on some potential improvement measures to reduce the SPIF energy consumption.

Process parameters calibration in 3D tube hydroforming processes

In tube hydroforming the concurrent actions of pressurized fluid and mechanical feeding allow to obtain tube shapes characterized by complex geometries such as different diameters sections and/or bulged zones. What is crucial in such processes is the proper design of operative parameters aimed to avoid defects (for instance shape defects or ductile fractures). The main process parameters are material feeding history (i.e. the punches velocity history) and internal pressure path during the process. In more complex three dimensional processes, also the action of a counterpunch is generally useful to reduce thinning in particular in expansion zones of the tube (i.e. T or Y shaped tubes). The good calibration of these parameters allows the optimal design of the process; in fact many researches have proposed different approaches to the optimization of these parameters. Generally, the main goals in the optimization approaches concern the control of thinning and the reaching of the desired final shape. In this p...

A Comparison between Three Meta-Modeling Optimization Approaches to Design a Tube Hydroforming Process

Computer aided procedures to design and optimize forming processes have become crucial research topics as the industrial interest in cost and time reduction has been increasing. A standalone numerical simulation approach could make the design too time consuming while meta-modeling techniques enables faster approximation of the investigated phenomena, reducing the simulation time. Many researchers are, nowadays, facing such research challenge by using various approaches. Response surface method (RSM) is probably the most known one, since its effectiveness was demonstrated in the past years. The effectiveness of RSM depends both on the definition of the Design of Experiments (DoE) and the accuracy of the function approximation. The number of numerical simulations can be strongly reduced if a proper optimization approach is implemented: one of the main issues about optimization techniques is related to the design necessity of performing either global or local approximation. This paper aims to test the efficacy of some meta-modeling techniques in the optimization of a T-shaped hydroforming process. In this paper three optimization approaches based on different meta-modeling techniques are implemented. In particular, classical Polynomial Regression approach (PR), Moving Least Squares approximation (MLS) and Kriging method are applied. The results showed that, thanks to the peculiarities of MLS and Kriging methods, it is possible to strongly reduce the computational effort in sheet metal forming optimization, particularly in comparison with a classical PR approach. Differences were highlighted and quantified.

On the Sustainability Evaluation in Sheet Metal Forming Processes

In sheet metal forming processes there is still a lack of knowledge in the field of environmental sustainability mainly due to the need of a proper modeling of issues and factors to be taken into account. Such topic is, nowadays, a urgent and remarkable issue in manufacturing and the main concerns are related to more efficient use of materials and energy. What is more, the estimation of environmental burdens of forming technologies is very complex to be accomplished since it is essentially process-dependent. This means that when comparing, for instance, a traditional forming process with an innovative one, there are some peculiar aspects to be considered; actually, processes can be rather different each other in terms of tooling, operative parameters and so on. In this paper, a first modeling effort is presented in order to compare, from a sustainability point of view, a classical stamping process with an incremental forming one. In particular, a frustum of pyramid part is considered and a quantitative analysis of the process energy consumption was developed. The paper aims to provide some sustainability guidelines to promote discussion on limitations, advantages, savings, drawbacks offered by different technologies within sheet metal forming field.

Numerical Prediction of Elastic Springback in An Automotive Complex Structural Part

The occurrence of elastic springback phenomena in sheet metal processing operations determines a relevant issue in the automotive industry. The routing and production of 3D complex parts for automotive applications is characterized by springback phenomena affecting the final geometry of the components both after the stamping operations and the trimming ones. In the present paper the full routing of a automotive structural part is considered and the springback phenomena occurring after forming and trimming are investigated through FE analyses utilizing an explicit implicit approach. In particular a sensitivity analysis on process parameter influencing springback occurrence is developed: blank holder force, draw bead penetration and blank shape.

Measuring of Geometrical Precision of Some parts Obtained by Asymmetric Incremental Forming Process After Trimming

Asymmetric Incremental Forming exalts the advantages of Incremental Forming process since no dies are strictly necessary. In this way complex geometries may be manufactured with a very simple clamping equipment. On the other hand, this characteristic determines some intrinsic drawbacks which penalise its industrial suitability; first of all, the dimensional control of the manufactured part is a still open point for researchers all over the world. Several approaches have been already proposed in the last years to solve the problem, resulting only in partial solutions. At the same time, up to now, the numerical simulation did not supply significant aid to the designers, due to the problem complexity and the very long simulation time when an elasto‐plastic analysis has to be carried out. For this reason an experimental trial and error approach is often preferred. An innovative approach is represented by the application of numerical analysis based on a coupled explicit‐implicit formulation. In this paper, som...

Life cycle energy and CO2 emissions analysis of food packaging: an insight into the methodology from an Italian perspective

Abstract Packaging is strictly connected to environmental issues as it is a product characterised by high material consumption rate; it is often transported over long distances and has a short life. Providing environmental analysis is, therefore, urgent to identify energy and resources efficient solutions. The paper, taking advantage of a real case study, presents a life cycle-based comparative analysis among three different food packaging systems. The paper compares the life cycle of tin steel, polypropylene and glass-based packaging of an Italian preserves producer. The analysis leads to the conclusion that, for the baseline scenario, polypropylene packaging represents the greenest solution, whereas glass packaging is the worst choice. The paper presents a scenario analysis varying both the method used for accounting for recycling as well as the recycling rates of the packaging materials. Changes in overall results with parameters analysis changing are calculated and highlighted throughout the paper. The impact of a reuse policy of the glass-based solution is also analysed; a model for disposable glass packaging is proposed and the obtained results are compared with the single use polypropylene and tin steel-based packaging. In order to analyse the impact of different End of Life scenarios on the present case study, collecting as well as recycling rates of some European countries have been used. The results revealed a significant fluctuation both in energy consumption and in CO2 emission as the nation changes. Summing up, a methodology for packaging environmental impact analysis is applied to a real case study, some crucial aspects of the methodology have been analysed in depth in order to give a contribution in packaging environmental impact analysis.

Tuning Decision Support Tools for Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing Approach Selection

Awareness about the environmental performance of manufacturing approaches has arisen. Comparative analyses of different manufacturing approaches as well as decision support methods should be developed in the field of metal shaping processes. The present paper aims at tuning a decision support tool for identifying when mass conserving approaches (forming based) are actually preferable over machining processes for manufacturing aluminum based components. A full LCA is developed for comparing the environmental performance of forming and machining approaches as the batch size and geometry complexity hang. The impact of the used metric on the comparative results is analyzed. Results reveal that primary energy can be used as reliable metric for identifying environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.