Roll forming technology for manufacturing axisymmetric automotive components

摘要

A unique roll forming technology that permits complex axisymmetric components, such as automotive wheels and turbine disks, to be formed in a single forming operation, has been developed by two Russian institutes, the Institute of TechnicalPhysics of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center and the Institute for Metals Superplasticity Problems. This process was used to fabricate automobile wheels from a Russian AVT alloy, a 6010 aluminum alloy equivalent. The process included steps of isothermalcompression of the initial blanks, isothermal forging of the blanks into preforms, and final isothermal roll forming of preforms into wheel shapes, all at 430°C for the AVT alloy. The microstructure and mechanical properties were evaluated at variouslocations in the finished wheels by optical metallography and tensile testing at elevated temperatures. Tensile properties were obtained by strain-rate change tests and tensile tests to failure at high strain rates. Microstructure and mechanicalproperties of the preforms and blanks were also evaluated. The results indicate that dynamically recovered microstructures were developed during the processing, which showed relatively high strain rate sensitivity and rendered sufficient plasticity at the elevated temperature for the wheel fabrication process.