Investigation into the effect of material properties and arrangement of each layer on the formability of bimetallic sheets

The application of bimetallic sheets composed of two dissimilar sheet metals with distinct properties has increasingly developed in recent years. Enhancement of bimetallic sheet's formability by designing of appropriate layers is an important challenge for industrialization of these sheets. The main objective of this paper is investigation on the influence of material properties of layers on the formability of bimetallic sheets analytically and experimentally. The analytical model was developed to predict forming limit diagram (FLD) based on M-K model using both the Hill's and Barlat-Lian yield functions. The experimental works was performed on Aluminum (AL3105)/Carbon steel (St14) sheets for verification of analytical model. Results showed that the formability of bimetallic sheet is enhanced by increasing of the strain hardening and strain rate sensitivity exponents of layers, although variation of the exponent coefficient of the layer with higher formability was more effective than layer with lower formability. In addition, the results demonstrated a significant nonlinear effect of variation in thickness of layers on the FLD0 index. It is found that the influence of anisotropy coefficient of layers is negligible in comparison with other material parameters, but the arrangement of anisotropic steel layer with isotropic aluminum layer as well as the arrangement of layers in the aligned rolling direction (0°−0°) can slightly improve the formability of two-layer sheets.