Elevated temperature forming of high strength aluminum automotive structural components

拟议的研究将解决在轻型汽车结构部件中使用高强度6000和7000系列铝板合金的障碍。与传统钢相比，这些合金由于其高比强度而提供了巨大的重量减轻潜力;然而，它们有限的可成形性使得难以制造所需的复杂形状。温成形通常被认为可以克服铝的低成形性;然而，对于这些合金，会导致其所需的高强度特性的损失。拟议的研究将考虑两种工艺路线来克服这些问题：（i）欠时效6000系列合金的温成形;以及（ii）固溶7000系列合金的模具淬火和时效。基本的热机械研究将确定有前途的加工路线，而高温成形性和组件规模的冲压实验将证明该过程。使用这些工艺路线制造的结构部件的耐撞性将直接使用大规模撞击实验进行评估。这些合金在加工条件下的高应变率本构行为的数值模型将被开发并用于模拟冲击实验。这项研究的最终成果将是商业加工路线，以制造高强度，重量轻的汽车结构部件，为我们的行业合作伙伴，本田，麦格纳和美铝快速商业化。

The proposed research will address barriers to the utilization of high strength 6000- and 7000-series aluminum sheet alloys within light weight automotive structural components. These alloys offer tremendous weight reduction potential due to their high specific strength compared to conventional steels; however, their limited formability makes it difficult to manufacture required complex shapes. Warm forming is often considered to overcoming the low formability of aluminum; however, for these alloys there would be a resulting loss of their desirable high strength characteristics. The proposed research will consider two processing routes to overcome these issues: (i) warm forming of under-aged 6000-series alloys; and (ii) die quenching and aging of solutionized 7000-series alloys. Fundamental thermo-mechanical studies will identify promising processing routes, while elevated temperature formability and component-scale stamping experiments will prove out the processes. The crashworthiness of structural components fabricated using these processing routes will be assessed directly using large-scale impact experiments. Numerical models of the high strain rate constitutive behavior of these alloys in the as-processed condition will be developed and used to simulate the impact experiments. The final outcome of this research will be commercial processing routes to fabricate high strength, light weight automotive structural components for rapid commercialization by our industry partners, Honda, Magna and Alcoa.