Investigation of AL/CU Bimetallic Tube Cladding Process by Severe Plastic Deformation

Abstract

A new cladding process is proposed and implemented on a bimetallic tube of copper and aluminum. Obtaining a good mechanical bond between the tube’s layers using simple setup components with low required process force and without using heating are the most distinguishing feature of this study. The objective of this paper is to study the effect of using three different spherical tipped punch diameters (21 mm, 21.6 mm, and 22 mm) on the cladding process. A spherical punch with a slightly enlarged spherical tip was pressed into the clad tube. To study the dynamical analysis of the developed process, an FE model was developed using ANSYS workbench®. The bonding of an AL6082T6 Aluminum tube (as the clad tube) to a pure copper tube (as the base tube) was studied. FE analysis results showed that increasing ball tipped punch diameter leads to an increase in the required process force, the deformation magnitude, the equivalent plastic strain, the maximum principal stress, and the maximum principal elastic strain values. The required process force was measured experimentally and by FE simulation for the three different ball tipped punch diameters. The average values of the FE process forces were found to be 21 KN, 39 KN and 48 KN respectively for the mentioned diameters, while experimentally the average forces values were found to be 13.3 KN, 33 KN and 39 KN for the mentioned diameters, respectively. A 10 KN force was required to dismantle the bimetallic tube layers using shear punch test.