Research on the integral hydrobulge forming of ellipsoidal shells

Although spherical vessels have sucessfully been made using hydrobulging technology. There are some problems occurring during the hydrobulging of ellipsoidal shells because in the latter case the structure is not centro-symmetrical as with spherical shells. In the present paper, the integral hydrobulge forming of ellipsoidal shells is described, its theoretical analysis, deformation tendency and experimental results being introduced. It is shown that ellipsoidal shells of which the axial length ratio m is less than √2 can be formed easily and that ellipsoidal shells of which m is greater than √2 can be also formed by adopting some technical measures.