Variation of elastic modulus of high strength 21-6-9 tube and its influences on forming quality in numerical control rotary draw bending

Elastic modulus is one of the most crucial mechanical property parameters that affects the plastic forming quality of bent parts, especially for springback. Elastic modulus practically varies with plastic deformation, and its precise description is necessary to enhance simulation precision for tube bending and gain steady, high-precision bent components by actual bending. Using repeated loading-unloading tensile tests (RLUTTs), the variation of elastic modulus of high strength 21-6-9 stainless steel tube (21-6-9-HS tube) in terms of plastic strain has been obtained, which its decreases rapidly at the beginning, then decreases tardily and tends to be stable in the end with increasing the plastic strain. The variation can be expressed as a first order exponential decay function. By embedding the variation of elastic modulus with the plastic strain into ABAQUS software to simulate numerical control (NC) rotary draw bending of the 21-6-9-HS tube, the prediction precision for the springback angle, springback radius, maximum cross section distortion ratio and maximum wall thinning ratio can be improved by 11.98%, 7.62%, 35.53% and 11.55%, respectively.