Superplastic forming of 1050 aluminium alloy

Superplastic forming (SPF) was implemented to form aluminium alloy 1050H14 (AA1050H14) for industrial applications. A number of ABAQUS numerical simulations were developed to predict he formation behavior of the AA1050H14 sheet at different temperatures by embedding the built-in creep material model. The published data was deployed in the FEM models for AA1050 flow stress curves at different uniaxial loading strain rates and testing temperatures. The m-value of AA1050 was obtained from the previous publication. The AA1050 sheets were blown into the die cavity by hot gas pressure according to the extracted pressure cycles from the FEM outcomes. The simulation mimics the formation of the SPF part in the press for both geometrical and formation time, which in turn captures the material flow rate using the creep model. The elongation of AA1050 sheets via SPF is within the limitation reached in the uniaxial test rates published by the author but the lead time is suitable for forming AA1050 complex boxes used in the food industry or the relevant sectors.