Thermoplastic forming of TC4 titanium alloy sheet by direct pulse current electromagnetic forming.

A new electromagnetic forming method named direct pulse current electromagnetic forming (DPCEMF) is a high-speed forming method which simultaneously combines pulsed current heating and electromagnetic forming. The volumetric heating and electromagnetic forming are completed in microsecond timescale. DPCEMF can solve the forming difficulty for the materials with low conductivity and high strength, such as titanium alloy. The yield stress of titanium alloy sheet is reduced significantly due to the joule heat. The feasibility of the DPCEMF process was validated experimentally in this work. The effect of key parameters on the formation of a corrugated workpiece was investigated. The process window of corrugation workpiece of Ti-6Al-4 V titanium alloy with DPCEM method is proposed. The results show that it can realize the fine replication of the corrugation die and no oxidation occurrence of titanium alloy specimen. This is a consequence of the low flow stress with joule heat and uniform electromagnetic force with high-speed forming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]