LightForm: Embedding Materials Engineering in Manufacturing with Light Alloys

轻合金（铝、钛和镁）对可持续交通非常重要，因为与钢相比，它们可以节省40%以上的重量，而且比复合材料便宜得多，更可回收。这导致了市场的快速增长，轻合金将主导汽车行业。在轻金属技术方面保持全球竞争力对英国的航空航天和国防工业也至关重要，因为英国是轻金属的主要出口国。例如，捷豹路虎已经生产全铝车身，钛广泛用于空中客车和劳斯莱斯的航空航天产品。轻合金市场的85%用于锻造产品，通过压制或锻造形成部件。传统制造在提高材料的性能（提高性能）和可制造性之间产生了冲突；也就是说，越是坚固的材料，其成型的难度和成本就越高。这是因为供应商对新材料的开发在很大程度上独立于制造商，而且越来越多的合金成分被开发出来以实现更高的性能，这造成了废料分离的问题，阻碍了闭环回收。因此，通常可制造性限制了性能。例如，在汽车车身中，目前只使用中等强度的铝牌号，因为使用一种强度很高的合金不能制成所需的形状是没有好处的。在需要高强度水平的情况下，例如在航空航天领域，使用专门的成形工艺，这增加了巨大的成本。为了解决这个难题，LightForm将开发一种新的整体方法所需的科学和建模能力，从而通过开发我们在高级组件成型过程中智能和精确地设计材料特性的能力的步骤变化，提高性能和可制造性。这将通过了解制造过程本身如何用于在微观尺度上操纵材料结构来实现，因此我们可以从柔软，可成形的材料开始，同时在我们将其塑造成最终产品的同时改进和定制其性能。例如，合金已经被设计成在汽车上的油漆在烤箱中固化后形成“烘烤硬化”。然而，我们希望在性能和性能预测方面进一步推动这个想法。例如，我们已经有证据表明，我们可以通过新的协同混合变形和热处理加工方法，将目前用于汽车车身的铝合金的强度提高一倍。要做到这一点，我们需要更好地了解材料如何作为动态系统，并设计它们来反馈不同的成形条件。我们还致力于开发强大的新技术，利用钻石x射线同步加速器等设施和现代建模方法，使我们能够实时看到材料在工业过程中的行为。通过在物理模型中捕获这些影响，并将其集成到工程代码中，我们将能够将微观结构工程嵌入到新的灵活成型技术中，这些技术不使用固定工具，并能够在设计阶段准确预测性能-从而加快上市时间和产品定制。我们的方法还提供了使用一种合金定制各种性能的可能性-使我们能够制造更容易闭环回收的产品。我们还将使用嵌入式微结构工程来扩展高性能航空航天材料的成形性，以提高精度并降低成形过程中的能量要求，从而降低目前工业的高成本。

Forming components from light alloys (aluminium, titanium and magnesium) is extremely important to sustainable transport because they can save over 40% weight, compared to steel, and are far cheaper and more recyclable than composites. This has led to rapid market growth, where light alloys are set to dominate the automotive sector. Remaining globally competitive in light metals technologies is also critical to the UK's, aerospace and defence industries, which are major exporters. For example, Jaguar Land Rover already produces fully aluminium car bodies and titanium is extensively used in aerospace products by Airbus and Rolls Royce. 85% of the market in light alloys is in wrought products, formed by pressing, or forging, to make components.Traditional manufacturing creates a conflict between increasing a material's properties, (to increase performance), and manufacturability; i.e. the stronger a material is, the more difficult and costly it is to form into a part. This is because the development of new materials by suppliers occurs largely independently of manufacturers, and ever more alloy compositions are developed to achieve higher performance, which creates problems with scrap separation preventing closed loop recycling. Thus, often manufacturability restricts performance. For example, in car bodies only medium strength aluminium grades are currently used because it is no good having a very strong alloy that can't be made into the required shape. In cases when high strength levels are needed, such as in aerospace, specialised forming processes are used which add huge cost. To solve this conundrum, LightForm will develop the science and modelling capability needed for a new holistic approach, whereby performance AND manufacturability can both be increased, through developing a step change in our ability to intelligently and precisely engineer the properties of a material during the forming of advanced components. This will be achieved by understanding how the manufacturing process itself can be used to manipulate the material structure at the microscopic scale, so we can start with a soft, formable, material and simultaneously improve and tailor its properties while we shape it into the final product. For example, alloys are already designed to 'bake harden' after being formed when the paint on a car is cured in an oven. However, we want to push this idea much further, both in terms of performance and property prediction. For example, we already have evidence we can double the strength of aluminium alloys currently used in car bodies by new synergistic hybrid deformation and heat treatment processing methods.To do this, we need to better understand how materials act as dynamic systems and design them to feed back to different forming conditions. We also aim to exploit exciting developments in powerful new techniques that will allow us to see how materials behave in industrial processes in real time, using facilities like the Diamond x-ray synchrotron, and modern modelling methods. By capturing these effects in physical models, and integrating them into engineering codes, we will be able to embed microstructure engineering in new flexible forming technologies, that don't use fixed tooling, and enable accurate prediction of properties at the design stage - thus accelerating time to market and the customisation of products.Our approach also offers the possibility to tailor a wide range of properties with one alloy - allowing us to make products that can be more easily closed-loop recycled. We will also use embedded microstructure engineering to extend the formability of high-performance aerospace materials to increase precision and decrease energy requirements in forming, reducing the current high cost to industry.