Numerical and experimental investigation of the effect of process parameters on sheet deformation during the electromagnetic forming of AA6061-T6 alloy

Abstract. Electromagnetic forming is a high-speed sheet metal forming technique to form metallic sheets by applying magnetic forces. In comparison to the conventional sheet metal forming process, electromagnetic forming is a process with an extremely high velocity and strain rate, which can be effectively used for the forming of certain difficult-to-form metals. During electromagnetic forming, it is important to recognise the effects of process parameters on the deformation and sheet thickness variation of the sheet metal. This research focuses on the development of a numerical model for aluminium alloy (AA6061-T6) to analyse the effects of three process parameters, namely voltage, sheet thickness and number turns of the coils, on the deformation and thickness variation of the sheet. A two-dimensional fully coupled finite-element (FE) model consisting of an electrical circuit, magnetic field and solid mechanics was developed and used to determine the effect of changing magnetic flux and system inductance on sheet deformation. Experiment validation of the results was performed on a 28 KJ electromagnetic forming system. The Taguchi orthogonal array approach was used for the design of experiments using the three input parameters (voltage, sheet thickness and number of turns of the coil). The maximum error between numerical and experimental values for sheet thickness variation was observed to be 4.9 %. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the experimental results. Applied voltage and sheet thickness were the significant parameters, while the number of turns of the coil had an insignificant effect on sheet deformation. The contribution ratio of voltage and sheet thickness was 46.21 % and 45.12 % respectively. The sheet deformation from simulations was found to be in good agreement with the experimental results.