Experimental Research on Wolfram Inert Gas AA1050 Aluminum Alloy Tailor Welded Blanks Processed by Single Point...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Manufacturing Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering

Background:

• Tailor welded blanks (TWB) offer design flexibility in automotive and aerospace.
• Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) is a flexible forming process for complex shapes.
• Investigating the formability of TWBs in SPIF is crucial for advanced manufacturing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally investigate the behavior of AA1050 aluminum alloy tailor welded blanks during SPIF.
• To determine the influence of welding techniques and thickness variations on formability.
• To identify optimal welding strategies for successful SPIF of TWBs.

Main Methods:

• Experimental analysis of AA1050 aluminum alloy sheets.
• Uniaxial tensile testing to characterize material properties.
• Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) of truncated cone shapes using variable wall angles.
• Wolfram Inert Gas (WIG) welding of dissimilar thickness sheets (one-side vs. two-side welds).

Main Results:

• One-sided WIG welded blanks fractured during SPIF.
• Two-sided WIG welded blanks successfully formed to a depth of 25 mm without fracture.
• Material behavior and forming forces were analyzed on unwelded blanks initially.

Conclusions:

• Successful SPIF of tailor welded blanks necessitates a two-sided welding approach.
• The SPIF process is viable for two-sided welded blanks of AA1050 aluminum alloy.
• Two-sided welding enhances the structural integrity of TWBs during incremental forming.