Abstract:Employing low pressurized gas for shaping superplastic metal sheets into complex contours has long been adopted in the aero/auto industries and it is commonly recognized as superplastic forming (SPF). The most undesired feature of SPF would be an uneven thickness distribution in the final formed part. However, there are techniques that lessen this disadvantage. Low pressurized gas was used to make a V-shaped trough containing deep uneven concavities using superplastic AA5083. The auxiliary yet influential procedure of mechanically hot bending the flat sheet into a V-shape precedes the gas-forming process. In this first quick hot-bending operation, buckling will occur if the depth of bending exceeds a certain level. The degree of buckling and associated contours will affect the thickness distribution as well as the wrinkling location in the gas-formed product. A better thickness distribution is obtainable at the cost of wrinkle formation. Wrinkling can be purposely arranged to achieve better uniform thickness distribution, but it needs to be located outside the trim line of the gas-formed semi-product. Therefore, it is critical to manipulate the hot bending procedure to yield a suitable pre-form allowing a successful sequential gas-forming process.

Key words: wrinkle; superplastic forming (SPF); hot-bend assisted gas forming (HBAGF); three-dimensional finite element analysis (FEA)