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Services

Finite Element Analysis

Improve product design & lower costs
with the power of FluidForming & finite element analysis.

sample fea results

Enjoy the benefits of finite element analysis (FEA). Do you want to know which metal and metal thickness is the best choice for your parts before you start manufacturing them? Are you wondering how your part designs will perform under FluidForming’s intense forming pressures?

To ensure the highest levels of formability, accuracy, and repeatability, FluidForming Americas (FFA) offers its customers detailed pre-production FEA reports. So you can enjoy the benefits of finite element analysis!

FEA part simulation and modeling improves product development, trims costs, and shortens overall time-to-market. FluidForming’s FEA software accurately predicts how a product will react in the real-world forming process. FFA provides information about part formability, material thinning, part springback, as well as work hardening data. This information can be used to identify potential problem areas in your design. Using FFA’s FEA data, customers can conduct an in-house analysis to study mechanical stress, vibration, heat, heat transfer, fluid flow, and more.

This computer analysis uses mathematical equations to predict — with a very high degree of accuracy — how well a part will form using the FluidForming process and technology.

formbalancer machine
Benefits of finite element analysis:

A real-life example.

Recently, a leading global manufacturer of cooling towers, closed-circuit cooling, evaporative condensers, and ice thermal storage solutions approached us to run an analysis of plate heat exchanger surfaces.

They tasked us with determining which material and which material thickness would work best for their new heat exchangers.

After experiencing unacceptable levels of metal spring-back, material thinning, and splits in heat exchangers formed by legacy forming methods, the client approached the FluidForming team to run an analysis — using several different variables — on a new heat exchanger design the company was considering producing.

Unlike many metal forming shops that rely on legacy metal forming methods — and costly trial and error production runs — FluidForming Americas worked collaboratively to help identify which material was the most formable and showed the least splitting, material thinning, and spring back. Before a single heat exchanger was formed.

In this example, FluidForming’s FEA simulation could potentially:
  • Reduce tooling costs.
  • Help the client select the optimum material.
  • Optimize design.
  • Improve functionality.
  • Improve manufacturability.
  • Provide information for dynamic testing.
formbalancer machine

FluidForming’s Six Sigma process produces components with minimal warping, unparalleled accuracy, and high repeatability rates. As a result, using the FluidForming metal forming process to manufacture heat exchangers would eliminate guesswork, improve part performance, minimize post-production fixturing, and reduce scrap rates.

Because just one surface of the heat exchanger’s sheet metal is exposed to the flexible and self-adjusting tool surface (water) under variably controlled pressures, the material is forced evenly into the tool and onto the tool surface. Consequently, the finished part has little to no distance between the tool and the metal surface, resulting in a highly accurate part and repeatable process.

With a 99.996% first-pass yield success rate, the FluidForming technology and process guarantee quality, accuracy, and repeatability. With pressures up to 4x as high as those used by traditional hydroforming devices, FluidFormed heat exchangers show minimal warping or springback, which virtually eliminates post-forming fixturing and clamping and, therefore, minimizes downstream cost.

Ready for better, faster, smarter sheet metal hydroforming?

We’ll work with you to manufacture highly precise components, on-time and on-budget.

FluidForming Americas, Inc. is a member of the Precision Metal Forming Association and is AS9100 Rev D, ISO 9001:2015 certified.