An Experimental Study on Nonisothermal Deep Drawing Process Using Aluminum and Magnesium Alloys

Weight reduction is one of the major goals in the automotive, appliance, and electronics industries. One way of achieving this goal is to use lightweight alloys such as aluminum and magnesium that have high strength to weight ratios. However, due to their limited formability at room temperature, forming needs to take place at elevated temperatures and mostly under nonisothermal conditions. In this study, nonisothermal deep drawing process using aluminum and magnesium alloys was investigated using a servo motor driven press and a heated tool set. Using the flexibility of the servo press kinematics, blanks were heated in the tool set prior to forming. Temperature-time measurements were made at various blank holder interface pressures in order to determine the required dwell time to heat the blank to the forming temperature. Several lubricants for elevated temperature forming were evaluated using the deep draw test, and a PTFE based film was found to be the best performing lubricant. Deep drawing tests were conducted to determine the process window (maximum punch velocity as functions of blank size and temperature) for Al 5754-O and Mg AZ31-O. Maximum punch velocities of 35 mm/s and 300 mm/s were obtained for the Al and Mg alloys, respectively. Comparisons for the Mg alloy sheets from two different suppliers were made and significant differences in formability were found. Experiments were conducted in order to understand the effect of constant and variable punch velocity and the temperature on the mechanics of deformation. Variable punch velocity is found to improve the thickness distribution of the formed part.