Experimental investigation of sheet metal formability under various strain rates

Formability of sheet metals is often assessed by means of forming limit diagrams

(FLD).the effect of forming velocity on FLDs is investigated experimentally for Al 6061-
T6 and AISI 1045 sheets
Biaxial stretch-formability is calculated using the forming limit diagram (FLD). The
formability depends on material properties (e.g.strain hardening coefficient, strain rate
sensitivity,
anisotropy ratio) and process parameters (e.g. strain rate, temperature).

Aluminium Alloys find a wide variety of uses Aluminium exhibits lower formability in
comparison to steel. In addition, aluminium exhibits stronger tendencies to localized
shear and is prone to damage owing to second-phase particles and impurity elements
aluminium shows hardly any strain-rate sensitivity in the strain rates involved in typical
forming operations

Fig. 4 Comparison between experimental and numerical results for specimen C2 for Al 6061-T6
after applying the optimized mesh size[1]

Strain paths are very important when dealing withsheet formability

Experimental results
4.2.1 Tensile test
Conventional tensile test are used tofind the yield and ultimate tensile strengths and the
total percentage of elongation for each of the sheets. thickness
 aluminium and steel sheets was 1.0mm. The tests were carried out at room
temperature.Test specimens were cut out from blanks at 0, 45, and 90 degrees to the
rolling direction. Table 5 shows the average yield
stress, ultimate tensile stress, total elongation, and normal
anisotropy value for the three directions.

CONCLUSION
The aim of this experimental–numerical study was to evaluate the formability of 6061-T6
aluminium alloy and AISI 1045 steel sheets under various forming speeds.
1. The present impact and explosive forming procedure can be used successfully to determine
experimentally the forming limit diagrams at intermediate and high strain rates.
2. It is clear from the experimental results that substantial improvements in formability can be
obtained at high-velocity forming.
3. The increase in failure strain is more evident for positive minor strain states.

REFERENCES

[1]Proc. IMechE Vol. 223 Part B: J. Engineering Manufacture1