Thermo-mechanical Forming of Al–Mg–Si Alloys: Modeling and Experiments

Abstract. In an ongoing quest to realize lighter vehicles with improved fuel efficiency, deformation characteristics of the material AA 6016 is investigated. In the first part of this study, material behavior of Al–Mg–Si sheet alloy is investigated under different process (temperature and strain rate) and loading (uniaxial and biaxial) conditions experimentally. Later, warm cylindrical cup deep drawing experiments were performed to study the effect of various parameters on warm forming processes, such as the effect of punch velocity, holding time, temper and temperature on force-displacement response. The plastic anisotropy of the material which can be directly reflected by the earing behavior of the drawn cups has also been studied. Finite element simulations can be a powerful tool for the design of warm forming processes and tooling. Their accuracy will depend on the availability of material models that are capable of describing the influence of temperature and strain rate on the flow stresses. The physically based Nes model is used to describe the influence of temperature and strain rate and the Vegter yield criterion is used to describe the plastic anisotropy of the sheet. Experimental drawing test data are used to validate the modeling approaches.