Characteristics and application of high strength titanium alloy forming technology

Following the previous article, we first introduce the electromagnetic assisted forming technology of titanium alloy and then compare the characteristics and applications of the 3 technologies.

Electromagnetic forming (EMF) is a high-speed forming method, which uses metal to deform by magnetic force in a strong pulsed magnetic field.

In order to analyze the structural response of Ti-6Al-4V plate under different deformation speeds, Li et al. Studied the microstructure under high-speed deformation and compared it with that under quasi-static deformation, It is found that the grain size of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy plate does not change obviously under dynamic loading, but the grain is elongated. Due to the material flow and impact, the hardness distribution of the sample is uneven, but the texture has no obvious change.

In the high-speed deformation process of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy, when the amount of deformation is small, the plastic deformation is dominated by the dislocation slip mechanism; When the amount of deformation increases, in addition to the dislocation slip mechanism, the twin mechanism is also activated, and the twin plane is (1011), which is conducive to plastic deformation, but the number is small.

Focusing on the forming of high-strength titanium alloy, the characteristics and applications of three advanced forming technologies, namely, hot forming technology, pulse current assisted forming technology and electromagnetic assisted forming technology, are introduced:

1) Hot forming technology, which has mature equipment, clear mechanism, and remarkable effect is the most common forming process used in titanium alloy plastic processing at present. Moreover, with the rapid development of electric furnace heating equipment and electromagnetic induction heating equipment, Basically, it can accurately control the forming temperature and heating position, It can not only meet the overall forming of large titanium alloy components, but It can also adapt to the rapid prototyping of small-batch parts.

2) Pulse current and electromagnetic assisted forming technology have the advantages of high energy utilization, energy saving, high efficiency, and environmental protection. However, there is still a lack of quantitative research on the forming mechanism of the two processes, and the development of forming equipment is not universal, which limits its popularization and application to a certain extent; however, with the in-depth research, it has a potential application prospect in the forming of high-strength and difficult to form materials.

3) With the demand for equipment for extreme service performance, the components are required to have high precision, high performance, and high stability, which puts forward an urgent demand for the development of high-performance titanium alloy compact forming technology.

For the above precision forming technology, on the one hand, it is necessary to develop forming equipment suitable for large, small, and precision parts to achieve accurate control of heat source position and forming temperature; On the other hand, the forming process, forming performance and forming mechanism of high-performance titanium alloy are further developed and studied, and a digital and intelligent forming database is established to realize the automatic configuration of forming process and meet the needs of industrialized and efficient production.