Recent Progress in the Forming of High-Strength Lightweight Alloys

A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701). This special issue belongs to the section "Metal Casting, Forming and Heat Treatment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2024) | Viewed by 6868

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Guest Editor
Hubei Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Automotive Components, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Interests: lightweight design and manufacturing of new energy vehicles; special energy field manufacturing of key components; intelligent manufacturing of high-end transport equipment
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to publish original contributions relating to the forming of high-strength lightweight alloys. High-strength lightweight alloys such as high-strength steel, aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy and titanium alloy, are important structural metal materials with excellent characteristics of high specific strength, high specific stiffness and excellent lightweight performance, etc. They have been widely used in aerospace, high-speed rail, automotive and other fields. Generally, an increase in alloy strength will lead to a decrease in plasticity, making the material prone to crack, springback, wrinkle and other forming defects. In recent years, in order to improve the formability of high-strength lightweight alloys, a lot of new forming methods have emerged and become research hotspots in this field. This Special Issue focuses on the new forming methods of high-strength lightweight alloys.

Articles concerning the theories, technologies and applications related to the forming of high-strength lightweight alloys are welcome. This will provide a broad platform for scientists and engineers in the field of material processing all over the world to showcase their latest research work. Therefore, this Special Issue will cover, without being limited to, the following fundamental and applied research topics:

  • High-strength lightweight alloys
  • Material characterization
  • Kinetic modelling
  • Constitutive modelling
  • Deformation mechanics
  • Forming and joining processes
  • Rapid aging
  • Process and system modelling
  • Fatigue and fracture
  • Applications

Prof. Dr. Yanli Song
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • high-strength lightweight alloys
  • material characterization
  • kinetic modelling
  • constitutive modelling
  • deformation mechanics
  • forming and joining processes
  • rapid aging
  • process and system modelling
  • fatigue and fracture
  • applications

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 10564 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Microstructure and Hardness of TC11 Titanium Alloy under Different Electroshocking Treatment Directions
by Chang Liu, Yongjian Wu, Haoxing Wang, Fei Yin, Dongsheng Qian, Liqiang Wang, Lechun Xie and Lin Hua
Metals 2023, 13(8), 1396; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13081396 - 4 Aug 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1270
Abstract
The effects of electroshocking treatment (EST) direction on microstructure and hardness of TC11 alloy (Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si) were investigated. The results indicated that the temperature of specimens under EST along the transverse direction (T-EST) was higher than that under EST along the vertical direction (V-EST). [...] Read more.
The effects of electroshocking treatment (EST) direction on microstructure and hardness of TC11 alloy (Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si) were investigated. The results indicated that the temperature of specimens under EST along the transverse direction (T-EST) was higher than that under EST along the vertical direction (V-EST). The studies reveal the higher quantity of needle-like α martensite (αM) phases precipitated in the specimen in the case of T-EST as compared with V-EST, with a more uniform distribution of αM phases. The average Vickers hardness of specimens under T-EST and V-EST with 0.06 s were 349.3 HV and 360.8 HV, respectively, which showed an obvious increase compared to the untreated specimen. The increase in hardness was ascribed to the dispersion strengthening of needle-like αM phase, and the dispersion strengthening effect on the specimen under T-EST with 0.06 s was more obvious than on the other specimens, which was caused by a large number of evenly distributed nucleation areas for the precipitation of the αM phase and uniform distribution of the αM phase. The results indicate that a different treatment direction of EST can promote the formation of different microstructures in TC11 alloy, which demonstrates that the effect of EST cannot be simply equated with heat treatment at the same temperature. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in the Forming of High-Strength Lightweight Alloys)
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17 pages, 6719 KiB  
Article
Design of Aluminum Alloy H-Sections under Minor-Axis Bending
by Lin Yuan, Qilin Zhang, Shaoquan Zhang and Hanbin Ge
Metals 2023, 13(8), 1336; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13081336 - 26 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1205
Abstract
Much research has been reported on the global response of aluminum alloy H-sections members, while studies on the local buckling behavior of H-sections under pure bending remain relatively limited. The purpose of the research is to investigate the response of aluminum alloy H-sections [...] Read more.
Much research has been reported on the global response of aluminum alloy H-sections members, while studies on the local buckling behavior of H-sections under pure bending remain relatively limited. The purpose of the research is to investigate the response of aluminum alloy H-sections subjected to minor axis bending. Using a finite element model, this study analyzed the stress distribution and failure mechanism of aluminum alloy H-sections under minor-axis bending and obtained the ultimate capacities of cross-sections covering a wide range of plate slenderness. The results were compared with the strength predictions based on EN1999-1-1 and the effective width method in AS/NZS 4600. The flange slenderness was found to play the most significant role in determining the normalized capacity. The sections are shown to exhibit an elastic-plastic stress distribution in the tensile flanges. The comparisons given in this study indicate that EN1999-1-1 underestimates the predicted bending strengths. The predictions based on the effective width method are shown to be more accurate than EN1999-1-1. An alternative design method is proposed for treating aluminum H-sections in minor axis bending. This method considers plastic stress distributions in the tensile flanges after the compressed flanges have locally buckled. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in the Forming of High-Strength Lightweight Alloys)
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14 pages, 6460 KiB  
Article
Promoting Dynamic Recrystallization of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu Alloy via Electroshock Treatment
by Yanli Song, Yuhang Wu, Jue Lu, Manlin Mei, Lechun Xie and Chuanchuan Hao
Metals 2023, 13(5), 944; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13050944 - 13 May 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1404
Abstract
The application of high-strength Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy is seriously limited because of its poor formability. A novel electroshock treatment (EST) technique with low frequency combined with tensile deformation was proposed to address the issues of low plasticity and poor formability of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy, which [...] Read more.
The application of high-strength Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy is seriously limited because of its poor formability. A novel electroshock treatment (EST) technique with low frequency combined with tensile deformation was proposed to address the issues of low plasticity and poor formability of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy, which could revolutionize conventional plastic forming methods and realize near-room temperature forming of complex components. Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy was examined in this work to figure out how EST affects the tensile characteristics and dynamic recrystallization of the alloy during tensile deformation. The findings demonstrate that when electroshock with a current density of 30 A/mm² and a period of 5 s, the elongation of the alloy increased by 21.74%, and the fraction of dynamic recrystallization increased by 77.56% compared to the sample without EST at a temperature far below the recrystallization temperature. The electron back scatter diffraction (ESBD) results show that after appropriate EST, the average grain size decreased from 40 μm to 30 μm, the distribution of grain was more uniform, and the sample’s grain boundary angle generally increased, which is more attractive to facilitate the nucleation and growth of dynamic recrystallization. Additionally, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results indicate that electroshock energy motivated the migration of dislocations from the grain interior to near the grain boundaries, improving the ability of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy to dynamically recrystallize at near ambient temperature and enhancing elongation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in the Forming of High-Strength Lightweight Alloys)
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30 pages, 14441 KiB  
Article
Strain-Induced Phase Transformation Modeling of QP980 Steel and Its Application to Complex Loading Paths
by Zhiqin Lv, Enkai Dai, Ning Guo, Panpan Yuan, Guoqiang Liu and Bingtao Tang
Metals 2023, 13(4), 823; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13040823 - 21 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1987
Abstract
Quenching and partitioning (QP) steel has attracted much focus due to the effect of phase transformation induced plasticity (TRIP). However, the TRIP behavior makes it difficult to accurately predict the strain and stress distribution as well as the phase transformation behavior of QP [...] Read more.
Quenching and partitioning (QP) steel has attracted much focus due to the effect of phase transformation induced plasticity (TRIP). However, the TRIP behavior makes it difficult to accurately predict the strain and stress distribution as well as the phase transformation behavior of QP steel. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the QP980 microstructure were produced in this study, characterized by a combination of lath martensite, polygonal ferrite and retained austenite. The volume fraction evolution of retained austenite with equivalent plastic strain (EPS) of uniaxial tension was obtained by electron-backscatter diffraction. The phase transformation kinetics equations of QP980 were deduced based on the phase transformation model proposed by Olson and Cohen (simplified as O-C theory), considering the effects of strain rate, deformation temperature and stress state. A constitutive model on the dependence of the phase transformation was proposed to reveal the relation between metallographic characteristics and mechanical performance of QP980 steel during deformation. The User subroutine VUMAT in ABAQUS/Explicit was implemented to describe the volume fraction of retained austenite (VFRA) under different stress states. The established phase transformation and constitutive model were applied to three kinds of complex path loading tests. The variation in the retained austenite under complex strain paths was obtained and compared with the experimental results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in the Forming of High-Strength Lightweight Alloys)
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