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Room Temperature Stamping of High-Strength Aluminum for Lightweight Structural Automotive Components

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Abstract

The use of aluminum (Al) 7xxx series in automobile structural applications is limited by factors such as its low room-temperature formability in T6 temper and the need for off-line artificial aging to regain high strength if it is formed in soft temper. In this study, two tempers were established that enable Al 7075 blanks to be room temperature stamped to create side impact beams that achieve near-T6 strength without post-forming artificial aging. It is shown that natural aging at room temperature, after solution treatment and before stamping, provides an alternative to high temperature pre-aging and hot stamping techniques in 7xxx alloys. Both tempers enabled room temperature stamping of the beams without cracking, indicating good formability. The Al beams were ~38% lighter than the benchmark boron steel beam. The hardness in the low-deformation regions of the stamped Al beams were within 88% of a conventional 7075-T6 sheet. Paint-bake treatment of the beams appeared to cause over aging, lowering the ultimate tensile strength and ductility. Finite element three point bending simulations of the beams showed higher bending force and energy absorption before failure for the Al 7075 showing good promise for 7xxx series Al as a light-weight alternative to steel beams.

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Acknowledgments

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle Memorial Institute for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. This work was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Vehicle Technologies. The authors are thankful to the contributions by PNNL staff: K. Balusu, T. Roosendaal, R. Seffens, M. Rhodes, A. Ortiz, T. Mungole, K. Rader, R. Davies, E. Stephens, M. Dahl, and K. Mattlin. We would like to thank the technical support provided by Mr. B. Kokosza and his team at Magna-Stronach Centre for Innovation for stamping operation, technical discussions, and support. We are also grateful to the technical staff at GM R&D—in particular, Mr. J. Carter and Dr. A. K. Sachdev, for their insightful comments, discussions, and providing the steel impact beam for this research.

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Author notes

  1. Wahaz Nasim

    Present address: Saint-Gobain Research North America, 9 Goddard Road, Northborough, MA, 01532, USA

  2. Shank S. Kulkarni

    Present address: University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Wahaz Nasim, Shank S. Kulkarni, Ayoub Soulami, Mert Efe & Aashish Rohatgi

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Contributions

WN: Writing-Original Draft, Investigation, Formal Analysis, Writing-Review & Editing. SSK: Investigation, Software, Formal Analysis, Methodology, Writing-Review & Editing. AS Conceptualization, Supervision, Software, Formal Analysis, Methodology. ME: Methodology, Investigation, Experimentation, Data Curation, Visualization, Writing-Review & Editing. AR: Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition, Project Administration, Data Curation, Methodology, Writing-Review & Editing.

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Correspondence to Aashish Rohatgi.

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Nasim, W., Kulkarni, S.S., Soulami, A. et al. Room Temperature Stamping of High-Strength Aluminum for Lightweight Structural Automotive Components. J. of Materi Eng and Perform (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-023-08810-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-023-08810-8

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