Papers by Keyword: Aluminum Sheet Forming

Abstract: Nowadays, mass reduction is the most often used term in the automotive industry. Car manufacturers are continuously working on getting ever lighter models than the previous ones, because of the global competition and the rigorous emission rules. A light car has many advantages: lower consumption, better handling, longer operating distance, etc. The emission rules forced the car brands to start new researches to find new solutions for mass reduction. The formula is relatively simple, using lighter or less materials or both and the car will be lighter. In the recent solutions there are three different ways: application of high strength steels, aluminum alloys, and carbon-composite elements. Our investigations are focusing mainly on aluminum, because of its high mass reduction potential. The biggest problem with the aluminum is its low formability. The formability of aluminum is lower than the steel, and it causes problems for the manufacturers. To increase the formability of the aluminum is a hot topic in the research and development area. Forming at elevated temperatures is one of the best solutions to increase the formability of aluminum. The relation between the formability and the forming temperature is not linear, furthermore beyond the optimum forming temperature the formability decreases. We need dozens of investigations to describe the perfect relation, but sometimes a good approximation is enough to form sheet products safely. In our work we investigated the EN AW 5754 aluminum alloy sheet at room temperature, 130°C, 200°C and 260°C. From these tests we could obtain FLC curves of the alloy at different temperatures. Using these curves, the process engineers could find the optimum parameters of their forming process.

Abstract: Compared to steel, aluminum has a reduced formability. The consequence is that the drawability of aluminum needs to be extended. This can be achieved by a material recovery that takes place near the zones in which a material failure is initiated during deep drawing. In the considered process, first the aluminum component will be preformed to a specific stress state. In the second step, it will be partial heat treated, before the component is getting finished. Based on the selective intermediate introduction of heat, the material flow of the pre-drawn part is influenced in such a manner that the most highly stressed zones are subjected to further reduction in sheet thickness. This is possible by sacrificing material out of zones near the crack. These areas are referred to below as “sacrificial zones”. They depend on the position of the critical region as a result of the material pre-strain. In these regions, the temperature can be varied. This paper focuses on the development of a methodology to determine a layout of intermediate heat treatment of preformed aluminum sheet metal components. In order to determine such a layout, a principal part must be designed on which the methodology can be reviewed.

Abstract: This paper presents a new procedure for a heat treatment embedded between two cold forming steps. A first cold forming step induces a defined strain hardening in the material. The following step is the heat treatment which takes place in a furnace at various temperatures and for certain durations. The application of such an intermediate heat treatment reduces the strain hardening of the material and enhances the elongation. This allows a higher degree of deformation in the second cold forming operation. The achievable properties of the aluminum alloy AlMg4.5Mn (AA5182) were discussed in detail. Further investigations using Nakajima test setup revealed an increased formability of the material. First the Nakajima samples were pre-strained along different linear strain paths to a predefined strain value. Afterwards the samples were heat treated without allowing the aluminum alloy to recrystallize. After cooling down the samples to room temperature, the tests are continued until the material’s fracture. As a result heat treatment dependent forming limit curves (FLC) are obtained. In comparison with a measured FLC at room temperature the support of the intermediate heat treatment on enhanced formability were shown. Furthermore the method is not restricted to AA5182 aluminum alloys.