Manufacturing of tailor-rolled blanks with thickness variations in both the longitudinal and latitudinal directions

A tailor-rolled blank is a semi-finished part that can be used to produce stamping parts with continuous thickness variations. This study investigates a cold manufacturing process to fabricate a TRB with variable thickness variations in both the longitudinal and latitudinal directions. The effect of the rolling process on the characteristics of the transition zone and the deformation behaviors of the blanks were investigated using various processing conditions. The dimensional variations at the transition zones were analyzed based on the cross-sectional thickness profiles of the formed blanks. The results show that manufacturing such a TRB requires an extra process to reduce dimensional instabilities caused by superimposed transition zones in both directions. To manufacture sound blanks with acceptable dimensions, this study proposes a trial method that uses blanks with circular and square holes instead of solid blank.