As a critical component in thermal management systems, copper tubes are widely used in automotive radiators, condensers, and other parts. In copper tube production, the drawing process is essential for achieving target dimensions and performance specifications. However, as the copper tube industry evolves, nowadays manual drawing process design and traditional drawing algorithms struggle to meet increasingly diverse finished product specifications and complex manufacturing requirements.
To address this issue, this study developed an intelligent drawing process design algorithm suitable for automotive copper tube production. This algorithm builds upon existing drawing without plug algorithms, floating plug drawing algorithms, and manually compiled drawing process sheets. It first learns the fundamental principles of drawing without plug algorithms, then derives the relationship between wall thickness changes before and after drawing using mathematical formulas. Subsequently, by analyzing the enterprise’s existing 297 drawing process sheets, the design principles of the drawing without plug algorithm were extracted. This established the number and positioning of required drawing without plug processes within different drawing procedures as the design principles for drawing without plug. Then, using the ‘Double decrement method’ from the floating plug drawing algorithm as an example and integrating the design principles of drawing without plug processes, we developed an intelligent drawing process design algorithm suitable for automotive copper tube production.
Furthermore, we selected a typical drawing process sheet for comparison. Through comparative analysis of key parameters such as processing rate and relative wall thickness reduction coefficient, we validated that this algorithm yields more rational results compared to traditional methods. Utilizing this algorithm not only significantly reduces the workload for drawing process designers but also produces more optimal drawing process design outcomes. Compared to other floating plug drawing algorithms, this algorithm also demonstrates greater universality.