Spring Back Studies in Aluminum Alloys

One of the challenges in manufacturing lightweight and fuel-efficient vehicles is an understanding of how the materials spring back when stamped into various complex shapes. Spring back is the shape distortion of sheet metal when removed from the die after forming. Three Aluminum alloys have been chosen for this study. A test similar to the "Demeri Benchmark Test" has been conducted to laser cut the cups from bottom to top to form thin circular rings. These rings are slit open at different angular orientations of the cup and the amount of circumferencial strain has been measured. The experimentally measured spring back data will also compared with the predicted virtual simulation of spring back using the commercially available codes such as Optris and DYNAFORM/LS-DYNA.