Warm Forming of Mg Sheets: From Incremental to Electromagnetic Forming

Magnesium alloys are generating interest in the automotive and aeronautic industries due to their low density and potential to reduce gross vehicular weight. However, the formability of these alloys is poor and they are very difficult to be formed at room temperature due to their strong basal texture in rolled form. In this paper, the potential of magnesium alloy sheets to be processed at warm conditions is studied for four different forming technologies: incremental forming (IF), deep drawing (DD), hydroforming (HF), and electromagnetic forming (EMF). Forming mechanisms and process window are experimentally characterized by monitoring different process parameters. Special focus is made on the influence of the forming temperature and the strain rate. Thus, experiments at temperatures from room to 523 K (250 °C) and a wide range of strain rates, between 10−3 up to 103 s−1 according to each process nature and scope, are conducted. It is observed that, even the inherent forming rate range of each process vary considerably, increasing forming temperature increases formability for all of these forming processes. In the other hand, an opposing effect of the strain rate is observed between the quasi-static processes (IF, DD, and HF) and the high speed process (EMF). Thus, a detrimental effect on formability is observed when increasing strain rate for quasi-static processes, while a mild increase is observed for EMF.