Research Projects

The automotive and aircraft industries are increasingly focusing on lightweight materials to reduce carbon emissions, energy consumption, improve fuel economy, and environmental friendliness. As the automotive body accounts for over 40% of a vehicle's overall weight, the industry is focusing on lightweight vehicle body materials like aluminium and magnesium. However, these lightweight materials require high temperatures for deformation, which requires special heat-resistant dies, tools, and cleaning processes. Alternative lightweight materials include Al/Cu laminated composites, which offer excellent properties such as fracture toughness, fatigue resistance, impact, wear resistance, good conductivity, and corrosion resistance. Electro-plasticity principles can be used instead of superplastic forming, where high current stimulates dislocation motion, increasing formability during deformation. This method also enhances the microstructure of metal materials, allowing dynamic recrystallization even at lower temperatures. The deformation mechanism in electric assisted forming plays a crucial role in the mechanical, forming behavior, and metallurgical properties of the material. In this research project, Al/Cu laminated composites will be fabricated using a new method of electric assisted forming to evaluate their mechanical and formability properties. The sheets will be deformed by varying the current, expressed in Forming limit Diagram (FLD), and microstructure and texture analysis will be conducted to understand the effect of grain size, misorientations, and texture on the formability behavior of Al/Cu laminated sheets.