An experimental and analytical investigation of flange forming by spinning process

The tube flange is typically performed using welding, forging methods, which cost effort and time. In the present work, a metal spinning process to form tube flange was proposed. A flange-forming tool was developed based on the outer tube diameter to form the flange. It consists of three components namely; collet, mandrill, and roller. An experimental work was conducted to investigate the process parameters of the flange process of lead tubes. Different working conditions are considered during conducting of flanged specimens, e.g. rotating speed, feed rate, and tube wall thickness. The effects of the working conditions on the flanging loads were investigated. The results reveal that the flanging load increases with the increasing rotational speed, tube wall thickness, and with both lower and higher values of feed rate while it decreases with medium values of feed rates. To show the effect of the working conditions on the flange characteristics, a parametric study was conducted. The results show that the surface hardness and surface roughness of the formed flange is improved with increasing all working conditions. A theoretical analysis to model the flange forming loads (axial, radial and tangential) was presented. A comparison between forming loads analytically and experimentally was discussed. The comparison indicates that this percentage of error up to 4% occurs, instead of error percentage up to 28%, in case of neglecting the low feed rate. © 2021 The author(s).