Abstract
Superplastic forming/diffusion bonding(SPF/DB) has been widely used in the automotive and aerospace industry since it has great advantages to produce very light and strong components. Finite element method(FEM) is used to model the SPF/DB process of 3-sheet sandwich panel to predict the pressure-time curve and to analyze the process parameters. In order to eliminate defects of the part, a new pressurization scheme is proposed. Contrary to the conventional one-step pressurization, which causes the folding at the DB joint, two-step pressurization can eliminate the folding. Effect of pressurization cycle was investigated by using FE analysis and proper pressurization cycle is proposed.