3D scanning and 3D printing to develop internally helically ribbed tubes

We developed 3D scanning and rapid prototyping-based approach for an easier design of high precision, single pass tube drawing technology dedicated to the manufacturing of high-quality internally helically ribbed tubes. The major difficulty in the currently used process design is the identification of floating plug stability criterion allowing manufacturing of high precision helical ribs. The novelty of the proposed approach is therefore to use a combination of 3D scanning and rapid prototyping processes to design a complex floating plug geometry based on minimizing membrane energy. It was combined with computer-aided design of drawing die geometry and process parameters of the optimal tube drawing.