摘要：The hydroforming process is a promising technique for the production of components in complex shapes which may increase stiffness and momentum of inertia. This study has been focused on a complete experimental characterization of hydroformed aluminium seamless tubes. The Al seamless tubes have been marked with circle grids produced by a specifically developed chemical etching based on CuCl2 reactant. During forming, the circle patterns are deformed with the Al alloys and so they permit to measure the local deformation. Moreover, under the hypothesis of volume conservation during plastic deformation, the measurements of the deformed markers allow the evaluation of the thickness variations also as a function of the imposed curvature radius. Finally, the texture analysis has been performed by SEM-EBSD and the development of particular crystallographic textures, which revealed possible residual formability, have been identified. The results represent a preliminary step for further implementation of a simulation activity which will take into account also the forming behaviour of the materials under friction forces produced on the tube during expansion in the die.
