Quick Plastically Formed Aluminum Doors: Design and Performance

Abstract

Door-in-white structures of left hand, front and rear steel (baseline) doors were redesigned to facilitate their manufacture from hot-blow-formed aluminum panels. The door designs each incorporated a ''STAR'' multi-purpose reinforcement panel. The STAR panel fulfills the functions of the traditional door intrusion beam and the outer belt line reinforcement, and also provides additional reinforcement to one of the door shut-faces. Prototype door-in-white structures were manufactured from quick plastically formed aluminum panels. Mass savings of 5.1 kg/door (front) and 4.7 kg/door (rear) were obtained in the prototype aluminum doors relative to their steel counterparts. The aluminum doors met all static stiffness criteria with the exception of upper header stiffness. FMVSS 214 testing indicated that the doors exhibited acceptable intrusion resistance when tested in the production vehicle (steel) body system. The aluminum doors also performed well in a dynamic LINCAP (full vehicle side impact) test.

In‐situ heated stage scanning electron microscope analysis and characterisation of recrystallization behaviour of a 7000 series alloy with nickel additions

“…The use of aluminium alloys, mainly AA5083 is well established within automotive applications used in conjunction with advanced forming processes such as superplastic forming (SPF) [1,2]. There is now a drive towards the use of lower cost, higher strength alloys for use in similar applications, as such 7000 series alloys are prime candidates with their ability to solutionize during forming [3].…”

Investigations on Deformation Behavior of AA5754 Sheet Alloy Under Warm Hydroforming Conditions

“…Such multipiece constructions are cost prohibitive [3], so an elegant, more cost effective solution would involve process development to form a "one-piece" inner panel similar to the steel version. Innovations to improve the formability of aluminum can include increasing the fonning temperature [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], heat treating the sheet metal 114-16], and using unconventional means for shaping the product such as using fluid forming techniques [17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Development and implementation of such aluminum .sheet forming technologies could enable solutions for cost-competitive mass reduction of automotive bodies and closure panels.…”

Effect of pressurization profile on the deformation characteristics of fine-grained AZ31B Mg alloy sheet during gas blow forming

“…Krajewski and Schroth (2007) have reported some of the technical achievements realized in QPF. The design and performance of quick plastically formed aluminum doors were demonstrated by Schroth et al (2007). The major difference between SPF and QPF lies in the deformation controlling mechanism.…”