Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Sheet metal forming involves the forming of simple and complex components by the plastic deformation of a blank sheet till the required shape is achieved without any failures. The capability of a sheet metal to deform without any crack in sheet metal forming is called as formability (Kumar et al., 2021). The tool geometry, metallurgical and mechanical properties of the steel sheets, forming temperature and blank holder force, provide towards the success or failure during the forming of steel sheets. It is vital to understand the sheet material formability and thereby the development of components for several manufacturing and automotive applications (Natarajan et al., 2020; Mayavan et al., 2016; Hasan et al., 2017; Bagudanch et al., 2017; Hashemi et al. 2017).
The ever-increasing demand to improve the safety and comfort of automobiles has led to the addition of various electronic and other components (Allwood & Cullen, 2012; Satya et al., 2017; Ganesh & Naik, 2010; Hariharan et al., 2012). As a result, the weight of the automobile and the accompanied fuel consumption tend to increase. In addition Kishore and Jayasimha (2015) have observed that the need for fuel economy, safety and environmental mandates issued by the various governments in the recent years have caused the automotive industry to design light weight, high strength vehicles. Though low density materials such as aluminum lead to a weight reduction, their usage in automotive industry is limited owing to their low formability as stated by Kleiner (2013) and Raja et al. (2017). In addition to that, Karthikeyan et al. (2010) and Maji (2019) has found that the strength of sheet material reduces when subjected to welding owing due to the variations in their microstructure. This has led to development of tailor welded blanks (TWB) which optimizes the material thickness, improves the crash behaviour and reduces the overall component weight in automobiles (Xing et al. 2020).
The tailor welded blanks achieves these functions by applying engineering material requirements at exact locations instead of distributing it along the entire body panel (Kumar et al., 2017; Xinge et al., 2019; Satya et al., 2017; Swagat et al., 2018). Sangwook et al (2018) discussed the advantage of improving the process efficiency while reducing the number of stamped parts. Kinsey et al. (2000) have stated that under local dissimilar loading conditions, production cost is reduced by using tailor welded blanks.
Several studies explicate the importance of the study of the forming behaviors of TWBs fabricated using steels sheets in automotive industries. Vijay et al. (2018) & Su et al. (2019) has identified that formability of TWBs is highly influenced by the presence of the weld zone, the variations in thickness, and the high anisotropic behavior. Moreover their formability is limited by the material fracture and depends on the weld location in connection to the maximal strain. Mennecar at al. (2014) reported that a change in the location of the initial weld under deep drawing enhanced the forming characteristics of tailor welded HCT980X/HCT600X material.