Determining the formability of AA5052 sheets in annealed and H32 condition

Abstract

Forming Limit Diagram (FLD) is an easy and efficient way of determining the safe region for formability in sheet metals. In this work formability of AA5052 H32 sheets of thickness 1 mm is studied by developing a FLD. Since traditional generation of FLDs requires sophisticated equipment, an attempt has been made to generate FLDs using tensile testing and Erichsen cupping tests. Reduced section tensile samples were prepared with varying notch radius of 10 mm and 12 mm for the test. Tensile testing was carried out on a Universal Testing Machine (UTM) with a maximum capacity of 120 kN. Erichsen cupping tests were carried out on rectangular specimens with length of 90mm and widths of 60, 40, 25 and 10 mm respectively. The process (tensile and Erichsen testing) was repeated for this alloy in the annealed conditions with annealing temperature of 345°C. FLDs were plotted for both as-received and annealed conditions. The annealed samples shows a better formability compared to as received samples.