Thermo-mechanical forming of Al-Mg-Si Sheet

In warm forming of aluminum sheet, the temperature and strain rates vary considerably. In simulations, the material\ud model must be capable to predict stresses within this wide range. Here, the physically based Nes model is used to describe\ud the behavior of AA6061-T4 sheet material under warm forming conditions. A significant change of earing behavior is\ud found between room temperature and 250 ºC. Crystal plasticity calculations showed a reasonable correspondence of\ud changing r-values if extra slip systems are considered at high temperatures. Satisfactory results are obtained for simulation\ud of tensile tests and cylindrical deep drawing

Thermo-mechanical forming of Al-Mg-Si Sheet

In warm forming of aluminum sheet, the temperature and strain rates vary considerably. In simulations, the material model must be capable to predict stresses within this wide range. Here, the physically based Nes model is used to describe the behavior of AA6061-T4 sheet material under warm forming conditions. A significant change of earing behavior is found between room temperature and 250 ºC. Crystal plasticity calculations showed a reasonable correspondence of changing r-values if extra slip systems are considered at high temperatures. Satisfactory results are obtained for simulation of tensile tests and cylindrical deep drawing

Formation of hot tear under controlled solidification conditions

Aluminum alloy 7050 is known for its superior mechanical properties, and thus finds its application in aerospace industry. Vertical direct-chill (DC) casting process is typically employed for producing such an alloy. Despite its advantages, AA7050 is considered as a "hard-to-cast" alloy because of its propensity to cold cracking. This type of cracks occurs catastrophically and is difficult to predict. Previous research suggested that such a crack could be initiated by undeveloped hot tears (microscopic hot tear) formed during the DC casting process if they reach a certain critical size. However, validation of such a hypothesis has not been done yet. Therefore, a method to produce a hot tear with a controlled size is needed as part of the verification studies. In the current study, we demonstrate a method that has a potential to control the size of the created hot tear in a small-scale solidification process. We found that by changing two variables, cooling rate and displacement compensation rate, the size of the hot tear during solidification can be modified in a controlled way. An X-ray microtomography characterization technique is utilized to quantify the created hot tear. We suggest that feeding and strain rate during DC casting are more important compared with the exerted force on the sample for the formation of a hot tear. In addition, we show that there are four different domains of hot-tear development in the explored experimental window-compression, microscopic hot tear, macroscopic hot tear, and failure. The samples produced in the current study will be used for subsequent experiments that simulate cold-cracking conditions to confirm the earlier proposed model.This research was carried out within the Materials innovation institute (www.m2i.nl) research framework, project no. M42.5.09340