Deep drawing of aluminium–steel tailor-welded blanks

Aluminium and steel blank sheets can be welded together to produce tailor-welded blanks with strength mismatch. These tailor-welded blanks are applied in aerospace and automotive industries. In this investigation, finite element simulations were carried out using home code DD3IMP to determine the formability characteristics of aluminium–steel tailor-welded blanks. Aluminium (AA6016-T4) blank sheet was combined with a range of steel blank sheets namely, mild-steel (DC06) and high strength steels (AISI-1018, HSLA-340, and DP600) to form four different Al–steel tailor-welded models. Aluminium, being relatively weaker, has the tendency to flow more than steel. In particular, dual-phase steel offers the maximum resistance to flow and mild-steel offers lowest resistance. A segmented blank holder allows the application of different forces on aluminium and steel sheet segments in the tailor-welded blank. Different blank holder forces enhance the formability of tailor-welded blank as well as control the draw-in. The simulation results indicate that even with large dissimilarities in material properties, Al–steel tailor-welded blanks can produce superior deep drawn parts.