Research about flange cracking in the high-strength steel spokes forming process

With the increasing demand of safety performance,lightweight and energy saving in the automotive industry,low cost hot-rolled high-strength steel parts have been widely used in the automotive wheel manufacturing. In order to tackle the cracking problem occurring in the center hole during the coupled reversedrawing and flanging process,finite element simulation was carried out. The distribution and variation of the stress and strain when forming the B550 CL high-strength steel was calculated and validated by experimental results. The results showed that the stress and strain concentrates severely in the flange area during the coupled forming process,and the deformation of this area is larger than the rest of the part.The damage and thickness reduction in the flanging region is relatively more serious,which may cause defects such as cracking in actual production.