Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Effects of HFQ Conditions on Forming of AA6082 B-pillar components

In this study, forming tests that replicate industrial forming conditions were conducted to explore the effects of HFQ conditions on the forming performance of AA6082 aluminium alloy sheets. In these tests, B-pillar components of a commercial vehicle were produced under different conditions, followed by ARGUS measurements to capture the formed geometry and strain distributions. A set of constitutive equations based on continuum damage mechanics (CDM) was implemented into FE models to simulate the forming processes, and the simulation results were compared with experimental data to validate the model and investigate the forming conditions. It was found that lower forming speed and higher temperature are beneficial to the quality of the formed parts, and the defects during forming were successfully predicted by the numerical simulations. Good agreements between the experimental and simulated results were found from the case study of the B-pillar forming tests, indicating that the CDM-based model can be successfully applied in practical forming processes for designing and optimising the process parameters.