Numerical simulation on chain-die forming of an AHSS top-hat section

Abstract

The applications of Advanced High-Strength Steels (AHSS) in the automotive industry are rapidly increasing due to a demand for a lightweight material that significantly reduces fuel consumption without compromising passenger safety. Automotive industries and material suppliers are expected by consumers to deliver reliable and affordable products, thus stimulating these manufacturers to research solutions to meet these customer requirements. The primary advantage of AHSS is its extremely high strength to weight ratio, an ideal material for the automotive industry. However, its low ductility is a major disadvantage, in particular, when using traditional cold forming processes such as roll forming and deep drawing process to form profiles. Consequently, AHSS parts frequently fail to form. Thereby, in order to improve quality and reliability on manufacturing AHSS products, a recently-developed incremental cold sheet metal forming technology called Chain-die Forming (CDF) is recognised as a potential solution to the forming process of AHSS. The typical CDF process is a combination of bending and roll forming processes which is equivalent to a roll with a large deforming radius, and incrementally forms the desired shape with split die and segments. This study focuses on manufacturing an AHSS top-hat section with minimum passes without geometrical or surface defects by using finite element modelling and simulations. The developed numerical simulation is employed to investigate the influences on the main control parameter of the CDF process while forming AHSS products and further develop new die-punch sets of compensation design via a numerical optimal process. In addition, the study focuses on the tool design to compensate spring-back and reduce friction between tooling and sheet-metal. This reduces the number of passes, thereby improving productivity and reducing energy consumption and material waste. This numerical study reveals that CDF forms AHSS products of complex profiles with much less residual stress, low spring back, low strain and of higher geometrical accuracy compared to other traditional manufacturing processes.