Formability of Metal Foam Cored Sandwich Steel Sheets

Abstract

The sandwich sheets categorized under tailor made blanks are widely used in the aircrafts, automobiles, and ship structures. Metal foam used in the sandwich sheets influences the mechanical properties of sandwich sheets. Since the sandwich sheets are used as formed parts in most of the manufacturing applications, it is curious to study on the formability of sandwich sheets fabricated with the influence of metal foam properties and choosing suitable properties. The main objective of the present work is to investigate the influence of metal foam properties on the formability of sandwich steel sheets. Comparison is drawn between bonded sheets, foam cored bonded sheets and foam cored reinforced bonded sheets. The tensile test was carried to evaluate the results like % elongation, strain hardening exponent (n), and limit strain in the base material constituting sandwich sheets for basic characterization of formability of sandwich sheets. The results show that there is a moderate improvement in overall formability of sandwich sheets. This is due to the improved ductility of adhesive which is rich in formulation of hardener reinforced with high ductile copper foam in the presence of interface bonding between base materials and reinforced adhesive layer. It is concluded that low ductile adhesive layer reinforced with high ductile metal foam material improves the formability of sandwich sheets.