Influence of Compression Coil Geometry in Electromagnetic Forming Using Experimental and Finite Element Method

Electromagnetic forming process is a high velocity forming technique which is widely used in automotive and aerospace sectors for forming and joining metallic sheet/tubes. The geometrical structure of compression coil has significant effect on the performance of the system in terms of current output and deformation of workpiece. The present work aims to analyse the effect of structural parameters of compression coil like cross-section of turns (X), pitch circular diameter (PCD) and effective turn (n) using both experimental and numerical simulation. A bitter compression coil of variable geometrical structure has been considered to see the effect of its parameters by deforming an AA6061 tube experimentally. Parameters like magnetic field, velocity, Lorentz force, displacement and stress are difficult to measure experimentally but have significant indication on performance of the coil in EMF. The trends of numerically predicated parameters find good agreement with experimental deformation value of tube. The FE simulation is carried out to correlate deformation results. The results indicate that n has higher significance in performance of compression coil as compared to X and PCD of coil.