Experimental determination of spring back and thinning effect of aluminum sheet metal during L-bending operation

• The spring back and thinning effect during L-bending was determined on aluminum sheet.
• Beyond a particular clearance, the above said effects are linearly increasing.
• Below the critical clearance scratches will occur on the surface due to wear.
• As the clearance reduces, the wear rate increases on the punching surface.

In automotive industry, significant efforts are being put forth to replace steel sheets with aluminum sheets for various applications. Besides its higher cost, there are several technical hurdles for wide usage of aluminum sheets in forming. Major problems in aluminum sheet metal forming operations are deformation errors and spring back effect. These problems are dependent on the number of parameters such as die and tool geometry, friction condition, loading condition and anisotropic properties of the metal.To predict the exact shape, the geometry based punch contact program must be used. The shape changes once the punch is withdrawn, because of the materials elasticity. Prediction of such a spring back effect is a major challenging problem in industry involving sheet metal forming operations. It also needs applying appropriate back tension during the forming complex shapes. Slight deformation of the metal leads to non-axisymmetric loading. One can predict the residual stress by determining plastic and elastic deformation. Thus appropriate spring back effect can be investigated.The present investigation was carried out to determine the spring back and thinning effect of aluminum sheet metal during L-bending operation. Number of specimens with thickness varying from 0.5 mm to 3.5 mm were prepared. The experiments were conducted for different clearances between punch and die. It is observed that, beyond a particular clearance for each thickness of the sheet metal, the spring back and thinning effects were linearly increasing. However, below the critical clearance, scratches on the surface of the sheet metal were seen due to wear. The scratches were analyzed through Scanning Electron micrographs. As the clearance between punch and die reduces further, more wear on the punching surface was observed. And, as the clearance increases it leads to increase the spring back effect and fracture propagation.