Analysis of strain in electromagnetic V-shaped bending of 2024-T3 aviation aluminum alloy plate

The mechanical properties and service life of parts are influenced by the strain characteristics after metal forming process which causes plastic deformation. Meanwhile, the electromagnetic forming (EMF) gets more attention for the advantage that it can help to overcome the drawback of low formability of aluminum alloys at room temperature by improving the formability. Therefore, the aviation aluminum alloy plate of 2024-T3 was used as the study object. And, the experiments and numerical simulations of V-bending process by both EMF and conventional mechanical method were carried out. The influence of two forming methods on the strain characteristics at the V-shaped corner which is along the longitudinal direction of the specimen was studied. The results show that the tensile strain at the outside of the V-shaped corner of the numerical virtual part formed by EMF is smaller than that formed by mechanical method, and the peak value of tensile strain of actual part formed by EMF is lower by 13.9% as well. In addition, compared with mechanical method, a larger proportion of metal sheet formed by EMF gets involved in the bending deformation.