Title: A methodology to reduce and quantify wrinkling in tailor welded blank forming

Authors: Brad Kinsey, Neil Krishnan, Jian Cao

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Abstract: Tailor welded blanks are blanks where multiple materials are seam welded together prior to the forming process; thus allowing the designer to |tailor|| the location of material properties in the given part where desired. These blanks are subject to the same forming concerns as traditional, uniform material blanks, for example wrinkling and tearing, but are often more prone to these failures due to the disparity of material properties within the tailor welded blank. To address tearing concerns, a segmented binder process, which varies the force applied to the materials in the tailor welded blank, has been used successfully in the past. In this paper, a segmented binder is also shown to be effective at reducing wrinkling in a tailor welded blank application. Also, a methodology is presented to systematically determine the ratio of forces for the segmented binder process, which otherwise would have to be determined by trial and error. Finally, a technique to quantify wrinkling in finite element simulations, for tailor welded blanks as well as uniform material blanks, is presented.

Keywords: finite element analysis; FEA; sheet metal forming; tailor welded blanks; wrinkling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.2004.004749

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, 2004 Vol.21 No.1/2/3, pp.154 - 168

Published online: 07 Jul 2004 *

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