Novelis, Inc.

Montebello Packaging, a Division of Great Pacific Enterprises, L.p.

Montebello Packaging

Yihai Shi

Robert William Mallory

Stuart R MacEwen

Peter Hamstra

James D Moulton

Robert Mallory

Stuart R Macewen

A method of forming a bottle-shaped or other contoured metal container by providing a hollow metal preform having a closed end and a wall thickness that decreases progressively in a direction away from the closed end, and subjecting the preform to internal fluid pressure to cause the preform to expand against the wall of a die cavity defining the desired container shape. The method may be employed in pressure-ram-forming procedures wherein a punch is advanced by means of a backing ram into the die cavity to displace and deform the closed end of the preform.

Methods of pressure forming metal containers and the like from preforms having wall thickness gradient

In hydroforming of hollow metal articles in a die, such as pressure-ram-forming procedures, a method of decreasing cycle time of the forming process, while ensuring acceptable product properties and avoiding failures, by modeling the process using finite element analysis to establish a pressure-time history that optimizes the forming operation and applies failure limits to selected variables such as minimum wall thickness or maximum strain rate, and transferring this pressure-time history to a computer controlling the forming process. Thermocouple and/or continuity sensors are incorporated into the die wall and connected to the computer so as to provide active feedback from the die to the control of the process.

Methods of and apparatus for forming hollow metal articles

Growing community of inventors

Loyalist Township, Canada

Yihai Shi