Plastic forming processes of transverse non-homogeneous composite metallic sheets

Abstract

Abstract In this work an analysis of the radial stress and velocity fields is performed according to the J 2 flow theory for a rigid/perfectly plastic material. The flow field is used to simulate the forming processes of sheets. The significant achievement of this paper is the generalization of the work by Nadai & Hill for homogenous material in the sense of its yield stress, to a material with general transverse non-homogeneity. In Addition, a special un-coupled form of the system of equations is obtained where the task of solving it reduces to the solution of a single non-linear algebraic differential equation for the shear stress. A semi-analytical solution is attained solving numerically this equation and the rest of the stresses term together with the velocity field is calculated analytically. As a case study a tri-layered symmetrical sheet is chosen for two configurations: soft inner core and hard coating, hard inner core and soft coating. The main practical outcome of this work is the derivation of the validity limit for radial solution by mapping the “state space” that encompasses all possible configurations of the forming process. This configuration mapping defines the “safe” range of configurations parameters in which flawless processes can be achieved. Several aspects are researched: the ratio of material's properties of two adjacent layers, the location of layers interface and friction coefficient with the walls of the dies.