Current Progress in Rheoforming of Wrought Aluminum Alloys: A Review

Gan Li,Xiaogang Hu,Xinwei Li,Qiang Zhu,Feng Lin,Hongxing Lu

doi:10.3390/met10020238

Gan Li, Xiaogang Hu + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/met10020238

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Journal: Metals	Publication Date: Feb 11, 2020
Citations: 36	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Southern University of Science and Technology

Abstract

Semi-solid processing (SSP), including rheoforming and thixoforming, offers a promising opportunity to manufacture net-shaped parts with complex structure and excellent mechanical properties. Owing to its low cost and short process, rheoforming has been the subject of extensive study over the last two decades. The interest in the rheoforming of wrought aluminum alloys is progressively growing among both the research and industrial communities. This review starts with reviewing the recent efforts and advances on preparation of semi-solid slurry of wrought Al alloys, followed by discussing the correlation between microstructure and performance of these alloys. Finally, special attention is paid in the industrial application and the future trends of rheoforming of wrought aluminum alloys.

Highlights

Wrought aluminum alloys, as a class of pervasive structural materials, are broadly used in aerospace and automobile sectors due to their low density, high strength to weight ratio and natural availability [1,2,3,4]
Semi-solid processing (SSP) is categorized into two routes: rheoforming, in which the alloy is controlled cooling to the semi-solid state and injected into a die without an intermediate solidification step, and thixoforming, which involves reheating of solid billets to a semi-solid temperature range and followed by forming operation
This paper aims at reviewing the recent development of rheoforming of wrought aluminum alloys

Summary

Introduction

As a class of pervasive structural materials, are broadly used in aerospace and automobile sectors due to their low density, high strength to weight ratio and natural availability [1,2,3,4]. Most parts made of wrought aluminum alloys are fabricated by plastic forming and precision machining [5,6]. These traditional approaches usually remain a few issues in terms of cost, production efficiency and complex geometry, which restrict their wider applications seriously. Semi-solid processing (SSP), as a promising near net-shape forming method for the metallic materials, is a competitive technique to satisfy the increasing demand of parts with complex structure and excellent mechanical properties [7,8,9]. Over the past two decades, an obvious trend can be found that rheoforming has been the subject of extensive study due to many merits, such as its lower cost and shorter process [10,11,12,13]

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