formability of aluminium - Sphinxworldbiz Limited

Posted by Anii Jain on November 6th, 2019

Aluminium alloys are more and more widely applied in car body manufacturing. Increasing the formability of aluminium alloys are one of the most relevant tasks in today's' research topics. In this paper, the focus will be on the investigation of the formability of aluminium alloys concerning those material grades that are more widely applied in the automotive industry including the 5xxx and 6xxx aluminium alloy series.

Recently, besides the cold forming of aluminium sheets, the forming of aluminium alloys at elevated temperatures became a hot research topic, too. In our experimental investigations, we mostly examined the EN AW 5754 and EN AW 6082 aluminium alloys at elevated temperatures. We analysed the effect of various material and process parameters (e.g. temperature, sheet thickness) on the formability of aluminium alloys with particular emphasis on the Forming Limit Diagrams at elevated temperatures in order to find the optimum forming conditions for these alloys.

At Sphinx, we confirm the process model against failure by giving the following outputs:

• 3D CAD surface model of the drawn panel with addendum & binder surface
• Blank size and shape optimization
• Cost-effective material grade selection for successful formability
• Draw bead locations, strengths and geometry
• Press cushion loads and draw load estimation.
• Movement of impact (shock) lines in visible panels
• Sound domain knowledge of sheet metal
• Part processing and tool design
• Digital prototyping of tool design
• Quality checks for surfacing
• Formability analysis
• Post-processing
• Engineering interpretation of key result areas like
• Thickness distribution, thickening, thinning /cracking
•  Waviness, wrinkles, folds
• Stress levels for panels for dent resistance and taunt looks
• Shock lines/skid lines