Method and intermediate product for producing a hollow body and a hollow body produced by said method

Abstract

The invention relates to method for producing a hollow body (26) from sheet metal, especially from aluminum or aluminum alloys. According to the inventive method, a substantially flat sheet metal blank (4) is provided. At least one wall intermediate element (8) which is produced as one piece with the sheet metal blank (4) is folded and/or bent into several substantially superimposed layers. Marginal areas (16, 18) of the sheet metal blank (4) are placed closely side by side, preferably they are placed on top of one another in such a manner that they overlap to some degree, and they are connected to one another. The sheet metal blank (4) and the folded wall intermediate element (8) are subjected to a hydraulic or pneumatic internal high pressure so that the folded wall intermediate element (8) is freely unfolded to form the hollow body (26). The invention also relates to a hollow body (26) produced by said method and to an intermediate product (2) which can be used to produce such a hollow body (26) according to the inventive method.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.