Hot metal gas forming (HMGF) is a desirable way for the automotive industry to produce complex metallic parts with poor formability, such as aluminum alloys. A simple hot gas forming method was developed to form aluminum alloy tubes using flame heating. An aluminum alloy tube was heated by a flame torch while the tube was rotated and compressed using a lathe machine and simultaneously pressurized with a constant air pressure. The effects of the internal pressure and axial feeding on expansion and wall thickness distribution were examined. The results showed that the proposed gas forming method was effective for forming aluminum alloy tubes. It was also indicated that axial feeding is a vital parameter to prevent reductions in wall thickness by supplying the material flow during the forming process.

To obtain enough hardness of the die-quenched products after hot stamping using direct resistance heating, the effects of the electrifying condition and initial microstructure of the quenchable steel sheet on hardness were examined in a hot bending experiment. The steel sheet was heated up to 900 °C in 3 to 10 s. The required heating time was shortened by normalising heat treatment due to the fine grain size of the sheet. The standard deviation of the hardness of the sheet heated to 900 °C in 3.2 s without temperature holding at the austenitising temperature was 12 HV, whereas the deviation reduced to 5 HV for temperature holding at the austenitising temperature of 3 s.

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Hot-stamped products are widely used for the body-in-white of an automobile as they are lightweight and improve crashworthiness. A hot-stamping process using planar compression was developed to strengthen corners of ultra-high strength parts by local thickening and hardening. In this process, the corners are thickened by compressing the blank in the planar direction with the upper and lower dies while blocking the movement of both edges with stoppers in the latter stage of forming. Thickening of the corners largely heightens the strength of the formed parts. Not only the thickness but also the hardness of the corner was increased by large plastic deformation and die quenching. For a hot hat-shaped part, a 30% increase in thickness and a 530 HV20 hardness around the corners were attained. The bending rigidity and strength of the formed parts thickened by 30% in the corners increased by 25% and 20%, respectively. In addition, the improvements of the part shape accuracy and the sidewall quenchability were obtained.