Modeling of Aging Treatment of Flow-Formed AA6061 Tube

Abstract

Flow-forming is a chipless metal forming process which employs an incremental rotary point deformation technique. An annealed AA6061 aluminum tubing preform was cold flow-formed into a seamless tube. A multiple pass flow-forming was performed. The strength of the flow-formed tube was altered by performing artificial aging treatment. The present research investigates the possibility of using response surface methodology (RSM) for predicting the hardness of the artificially aged flow-formed tube. Experiments were performed to investigate the effect of aging process parameters like solution time (ST), aging time (AT) and aging temperature (ATEMP) on the hardness of the flow-formed tube after artificial aging treatment. Experimental plan is performed by a standard RSM design called Box–Behnken Design. The results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicate that the proposed regression model obtained can adequately predict hardness values within the limits of the factors being studied.