Investigation of the Hot Stamping-in-Die Quenching Composite Forming Process of 5083 Aluminum Alloy Skin

Aluminum alloy has been used as the skin material for rail vehicles and automobiles to meet the requirements of environmental protection. The hot stamping-in-die quenching composite forming (HFQ) process is a promising technology to compensate for the poor formability of the aluminum alloy sheet at room temperature. In this paper, the high-temperature mechanical properties of 5083 aluminum alloy under various temperature (200 °C, 300 °C, 400 °C, 450 °C) and strain rate conditions (0.01 s(−1), 0.10 s(−1), 1.00 s(−1)) were investigated by uniaxial tensile tests. The finite element software of PAM-STAMP was employed to simulate the forming process of high-speed train skin. The effects of forming method and process parameters on the minimum thickness and springback of the skin were analyzed using the Response Surface Methodology (RSM). After parameter optimization, the forming experiment verified the simulation results and the test part met the quality requirements: the thickness above 3.84 mm and the springback within 1.1 mm. Mechanical properties of the sheet before and after HFQ were examined by uniaxial tensile tests at room temperature. It can be inferred from the comparison that the yield strength of the Al5083 sheet increases, but the elongation decreases from the HFQ process.