In recent years, thin aluminum alloy extruded tubes have been applied to structural parts such as automobile space frames to save energy. If the aluminum tubes could be processed in a greater variety of ways, such as bending, the range of applications would expand. In our previous study, we evaluated the bending of thin extruded square tubes. In the current study, we examined the bending formability of aluminum alloy pipes with reinforcing ribs using the finite element method (FEM). The influence of the reinforcing ribs on the form accuracy of the aluminum pipes in draw bending was investigated. The effective arrangement and thickness of a reinforcing rib was also investigated. As a result, it was clarified that two types of buckling arise for the reinforcing rib. Furthermore, a critical ratio
T=
t2/
t1 (
t1: a periphery part thickness of pipe,
t2: a thickness of rib) for controlling the buckling and the flattening distortion were proposed.
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