Forming of a super plastic sheet metal made of MgAZ31 alloy

Abstract

Metal forming industries are constantly looking for advanced innovation, economical and energy efficient techniques. Superplastic forming has a great potential to be one of those advanced forming methods. It is a near net shape forming process which uses a unique type of materials where elongation exceeds 200% during a controlled forming conditions, e.g. temperature, pressure, and strain rate. Most of superplastic materials are formed by gas technique at elevated temperature. The main objectives of the research work in this paper were: to study the effects of the forming schemes on the forming time and thickness distribution of the formed and device a method to improve the forming part thickness and its uniformity distribution and the forming time. In this paper, a hydraulic and heating system were designed and manufactured to facilitate the experimental investigation. The superplastic magnesium alloy AZ31, Mg AZ31, was formed at 350°C with different strain rates to investigate the effect of the forming pressure profiles on the thickness uniformity of the superplastic formed part. The pressure profiles were generated based on Dutta and Mukherjee analytical approach. Finally, a variable strain rate method is modified to improve the uniformity of the thickness distribution of the formed part and reduce the forming time; which is a major limitation of superplastic forming.