Experimental and Numerical Determination of Thermal Forming Limit Diagrams (TFLD) of High Strength Steel 22MnB5

摘要

High strength steel components are increasingly being considered for use in vehicle structures due to the potential for higher strength to weight ratio, fuel economy improvement and emission reduction. However, high strength steel's poor ductility at room temperature requires sheet forming to be carried out in hot forming method. The Thermal Forming Limit Diagram (TFLD) is an important primary criterion to determine how close the sheet metal is to tearing when it is formed into a product shape in hot forming process. In this work, an efficient experimental set-up named TFLD 300 which is based on Nakajima test has been developed. Several experiments for hot forming limits of high strength steel 22MnB5 were performed and the forming limit curves at different temperatures are obtained. Then the three-dimensional TFLD which considers temperature history and strain path is constructed. As an evaluation criterion for formability, the three-dimensional TFLD is introduced into KMAS (King Mesh Analysis System), which is independently developed commercial CAE software and can be used for hot forming simulation. Subsequently, a typical B-pillar's hot forming process with varying process conditions have been simulated by using the KMAS software. And the corresponding experiment results confirm that the KMAS software and three-dimensional TFLD can accurately predict the fracture of sheet metal in hot forming.