The electromagnetic forming process is high-velocity manufacturing techniques that useelectromagnetic forces to shape tube and sheet metal parts. Aluminum alloys are widelyused in engineering structures and components where light- weight and corrosion resistanceare required. Electromagnetic forming process are successfully employed for thematerials that are difficult to form by conventional methods because of spring back, as thisprocess achieves large amount of plastic deformation without spring back. In addition, electromagneticforming improves mechanical properties of the materials, especially, its hardness,and also increases the rate of production. In this paper, the experimental investigationand analysis on electromagnetic compression forming of aluminum alloy AA6101 tubes ispresented. Aluminum alloy tubes of outer diameter 40 mm and wall thickness of 2 mm with anominal tensile strength of 214 MPa were electromagnetically compressed using a 4 turnhelical actuator that discharges energies up to 20 kJ. It is found that a maximum of 15.85%reduction in outer diameter could be achieved during electromagnetic forming at 18 kJ withan approximate discharge current of 160 kA. The post- forming hardness, micro structureand deformed grain size were also studied. The experimental results were correlated withmathematical analysis using MATLAB and also with simulation using ANSYS. The comparisonof analytical results with experiment and simulation showed good.
展开▼
