Evaluation of Forming Limit Diagram of Aluminum Alloy 6061-T6 at Ambient Temperature

As fuel price increases, automobile industries are looking for more fuel efficient cars with less carbon emissions and high crashworthiness. Accordingly, this has necessitated for further research into the fonnability of Al 6xxx series alloys that have low weight and high strength properties. Since Al 6xxx series alloys are used in automotive panels, their fonnability characterization is essential. Hence, it is important to study tlie Fonning Limit Diagram (FLD) which predicts the limit strains which in tam, can be imposed safely during fonning. The present work manly focuses on detennining tlie Fonning Limit Diagrams of A16061-T6 alloy experimentally. The measurement of limit strains was accomplished using Digital Image Conelation Technique. The Hill - Swift model was used to predict FLD theoretically and a good agreement was found with tlie experimental results. Experimental results show that the use of appropriate fonnability parameters and reasonable processing methods can improve fonnability of A16061 - T6 alloys.