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Rotary forming of cast aluminum

University of British Columbia

The application of rotary forming to A356 offers a potential improvement in material use, simplified castings and ameliorated fatigue resistance. To investigate the utility of adopting this process industrially, an extensive characterization and modelling effort was undertaken. The constitutive behaviour of A356 in the as-cast condition was assessed with compression tests performed over a range of deformation temperatures (30-500°C) and strain rates (~0.1-10/s). The flow stress as a function of temperature and strain rate was quantified via an extended Ludwik-Hollomon and Kocks-Mecking framework. The through-process microstructural effects on A356 subjected to rotary forming at elevated temperatures was also investigated. This was conducted on material at 350°C with an industrially-scaled, purpose-built apparatus, inducing varying levels of spinning deformation. This was also conducted on commercially flow formed material with high levels of deformation at the same temperature. Macro and micro-hardness testing was used to track the changes from the as-cast and as-formed states, as well as following a T6 heat treatment. Further EDX analysis indicate that precipitation aspects of heat treatment is not appreciably affected by forming. Forming was found to principally affect the eutectic-Si particle size, resulting in a finer particle post heat treatment. An explicit finite element rotary forming model reciprocating experimental forming conditions was developed incorporating the Ludwik-Hollomon description. This forming model was found to be computationally expensive; however, demonstrated reasonable agreement with experimental geometry and phenomena. In evaluating the effect of forming on fatigue, multiaxial testing of A356-T6 was conducted to apprehend the basic fatigue mechanisms. Endurance limits are found to be generally governed by porosity and maximum principal stress for high cycle fatigue. Uniaxial fatigue tests of both experimentally and commercially formed material showed a 30% increase in endurance limits over unformed material, principally through mitigating porosity.

Text

2013-08-07

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44789

Materials Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/