Dimensional analysis of superplastic bulge forming

Abstract

Free-Bulge Forming (FBF), due to its simplicity, has been widely used as the main featuring test for superplastic forming (SPF) for a large range of materials. Numerous tests have been performed analytically, experimentally and numerically as a way to determine relevant properties of the material and to characterize the whole process. Nevertheless, the high number of variables involved in a SPF process hampers its analysis. This work applies Dimensional Analysis to reduce the number of variables to facilitate the characterization of SPF processes by analyzing the most relevant dimensionless parameters and developing a broad spectrum model of the FBF as a function of them.