Finite Element Analysis of Formability Improvement of Aluminum Alloy AA5182-O in Warm Electrohydraulic Forming Process

In this paper, a novel high speed forming process called warm electrohydraulic forming (WEHF) process is introduced. In this new forming process, the blank is heated before the forming process and then formed using the Electrohydraulic forming process. In order to investigate the formability improvement in this hybrid process, first the electrohydraulic forming of aluminum alloy AA5182-O at room temperature is simulated using the commercial software LS-DYNA and the results of simulation are verified with the experimental results available in the literature. After verification, the warm electrohydraulic forming process in different temperatures is simulated and the Forming Limit Diagrams (FLD) are obtained and compared to each other. The results indicate that considerable improvement in formability of the aluminum alloys in warm electrohydraulic forming process in different forming paths. Due to the ability of the WEHF in formability improvement, a novel WEHF is introduced and its formability improvement is investigated. In the experimental tests 23.6% increasing in failure strain of aluminum alloy is observed at WEHF in comparison with EHF. Therefore the formability improvement in WEHF process can be concluded.