Development of a high-temperature double-layer bulge test for failure prediction in gas-based hot forming of a high-strength aluminium alloy

In order to meet the continuously increasing environmental concerns, automotive lightweight concepts of replacing steels with high strength aluminium alloys are one promising solution. Therefore, complex automotive structural components manufactured with new processes like rapid gas-based hot sheet metal forming can become a key factor from a forming technology point of view. A product and process development phase, which is mainly assisted by numerical simulations, mandates knowledge of the material forming limits under the process conditions. The aim of this work is to determine the FLD of a 6xxx precipitation-hardening aluminium alloy within the solution heat treatment temperature range under gas-based hot forming process conditions. For this purpose, a hydraulic double-layered bulge test, as introduced by Banabic, is used as the basis and a high-temperature test setup as well as a characterization methodology are established. FE simulations are utilized to optimize the specimen geometries aiming at specific strain paths. Experiments are conducted with the optimized specimen geometries and the high-temperature FLD is extracted. The FLD is further used in simulations for process parameter identification for failure-free gas-based hot forming of a laboratory scale benchmark component. Experimental validations showed the reliability of the methodology and the determined FLD for failure prediction in the novel forming process.