Abstract
This paper is concerned with forming of Al-Zn-Mg-Sc aluminum alloy bolts, focusing on the effects of heat treatment and age-hardening on the formability and ductile damage evolution. Both experimental and finite element studies were performed. From the experiments, it is observed that the heat treatment or the normalization of Al-Zn-Mg-Sc aluminum alloy increases its formability dramatically resulting in successful bolt forming, while the effects of age-hardening at room temperature on the stress-strain relationship and formability are not very critical. Deformation characteristics such as distribution of effective stress and strain, material flow, and ductile damage evolution during bolt forming are examined using a commercial finite element package, Deform-2D. It should be noted that the extrusion load predicted by the finite element method matches well the experiment results. The finite element predictions on the deformation characteristics support the experimental observations such as fracture of bolt head flange, material flow, and distribution of hardness.
