A Study and Analysis on Electromagnetic Compression Forming Processed Aluminum Alloy Tubes

Abstract

Electromagnetic forming is one of the high- rate forming methods that are extensively used to form and join axisymmetric tubes and metal sheet. It is a high speed forming process using a pulsed magnetic field to form work pieces made of metals such as copper or aluminum alloys with high electrical conductivity. In this work, the experimental investigation and mathematical analysis of electromagnetic compression forming of aluminum alloy tubes AA6063 is studied. The aim of the work was to verify the results from MATLAB code with the experimental data. Experiments were conducted on aluminum alloy AA6063 tubes of outer diameter 40 mm and wall thickness of 2 mm with a nominal tensile strength of 214 MPa. The tube was compressed using 4 turn helical actuator discharge coil that can be energized up to 20 kJ. A study on the post forming characteristics hardness and on metallurgical effects were also carried out. The results of the mathematical analysis using MATLAB 2010 showed good correlation with experimental results.