Forming of Al 5182-O in a Servo Press at Room and Elevated Temperatures

Abstract

Aluminum alloys are increasingly used in automotive manufacturing to save weight. The drawability of Al 5182-O has been proven at room temperature (RT) and it is also shown that formability is further enhanced at elevated temperatures (ETs) in the range of 250–350 °C. A cost effective application of ET forming of Al alloys can be achieved using heated blank and cold dies (HB–CD). In this study, the material behavior of Al 5182-O is characterized using tensile test and viscous bulge test at RT. The nonisothermal finite element model (FEM) of deep drawing is developed using the commercial software pamstamp. Initially, deep drawing simulations and tests were carried out at RT using a 300 ton servo press, with a hydraulic cushion. The predictions with flow stress curves obtained from tensile and bulge tests were compared with experimental data. The effect of punch speed and temperature rise during forming at RT is investigated. The warm forming simulations were carried out by combining material data at ETs obtained from the literature. The coupled effects of sheet temperatures and punch speeds are investigated through the finite element analysis (FEA) to provide guidelines for ET stamping of Al 5182-O.