Forming Limit and Thickness Transition Zone Movement for Tailor Rolled Blank during Drawing Process

The process of automobile lightweight can be promoted by the application of tailor rolled blank（TRB）in the automobile industry.Therefore,research on the formability of TRB is of good practical significance and application value because of the enormous potential of TRB in the aspect of automobile lightweight.Aiming at the present condition of lack of researches on the influence of characteristic parameters on TRB drawing process,the drawing formability of TRB was studied with a combination method of simulation and experiment by taking square box as the research object.Firstly,drawing simulation and experiment of TRB were carried out.Then,effects of thickness transition zone（TTZ）position and blank size on the drawing formability of TRB were analyzed.Forming limit and TTZ movement for TRB square box during the drawing process were respectively discussed,when transition zones of TRB were located at different positions and blanks were of different sizes.The results indicate that lubrication condition exerts greater influence on TRB forming limit in comparison with TTZ movement,and the smaller blank size and TTZ being located at the blank center or slightly offset to the thinner side are preferable for acquiring greater forming limit and smaller TTZ movement.

Improving the Hydromechanical Deep-Drawing Process Using Aluminum Tailored Heat Treated Blanks

The present work demonstrates the effectiveness of combining the hydromechanical deep-drawing process with the Tailored Heat Treated Blank（THTB） technique. In the hydromechanical deep-drawing process, the fluid pressure is used for postponing the fracture occurrence in the blank, while the THTB technique allows to create a material property gradient through a suitable artificial aging treatment carried out prior to the forming process. Since the number of process variables is large, in the present work the authors propose an optimization loop for the determination of the parameters controlling the extension of the blank regions to be subjected to the aging treatment and the temperature levels to be set during the heat treatment. The proposed methodology couples a simple finite element model（Abaqus） with a multiobjective optimization platform（mode FRONTIER）. A preliminary experimental campaign was carried out for determining the effect of the aging treatment on the mechanical（through tensile tests） and deformative（through formability tests）behavior of the AC170 PX aluminum alloy. Optimization results prove the effectiveness of the adopted methodology and put in evidence that the adoption of properly aged blanks in the hydromechanical deep drawing allows to increase the limit drawing ratio and to simplify the process since it is conducted at room temperature.