3D FEM Simulation and Experimental Research of Springback in Bending Process of Aluminum Alloy Sheet

Bending of the aluminum alloy is one of the processes frequently applied during manufacture of aircraft sheet metal. The bending operation involves springback, which is defined as elastic recovery of the part during unloading. In manufacturing industry, it is still a practical and difficult problem to predict the final geometry of the part after springback and to design appropriate tools in order to compensate for springback. In this study, 3D commercially available finite element analysis (FEA) software-MARC is used to analyse bending and springback of different aluminium materials (LY12CZ) with different thickness. The amount of springback, total equivalent plastic strains and equivalent von mises stresses are obtained. Moreover, the relation between bent angle and springback angle, R/t ratio and springback angle are presented and discussed in detail.The comparison results of FEA result and experiment data indicate that the FEM (finite element analysis method) simulation is a power tool for the highly accurate prediction of springback behavior in sheet metal bending.