Energy-assisted forming: theory and applications

Many advanced high strength metals developed for automotive and aerospace applications exhibit poor formability at room temperature. This has led to the development of high temperature processes such as warm forming and hot forming that are expensive in terms of cost and time. It is possible to utilize the viscoplastic nature of the material to enhance the room temperature formability. The use of servo press, ultrasonic-assisted forming, and electrical-assisted forming are few such representative processes. This chapter will explore the fundamentals that govern these processes and also describe the application with case studies from literature. Since all the processes are based on similar principles, the mechanical behavior during processing can be modeled under a common framework. In this chapter, a dislocation density model is proposed as a common model for energy-assisted forming processes.