• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.778-782
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• 2007

In the present study, design and forming process of fabricating titianium lightweight components are developed with applicaton of superplastic forming and diffusion bonding technology. SPF/DB(Superplastic forming/Diffusion bonding) technology is one of the advanced technologies to reduce production cost and weight and currently applied to aircrafts and space launchers in foreign countries. The present study constructs an analysis model to predict superplastic forming behavior of titanium alloy, which is well known for its resistance to deform. The experimental results show the forming of titanium lightweight sandwich structure is successfully performed from 3 sheets of Ti-6Al-4V. The results demonstrate that the developed technology to process design of SPF/DB by the finite element method can be applied to various types of components.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.123-128
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• 2008

Ti-6Al-4V alloy is a critical strategic metal used in aerospace structure due to the high specific strength, toughness, durability, low density, corrosion resistance. Examples of application of this alloy are airframe structural components, aircraft gas turbine disks and blades. Forming of this alloy is not easy due to its high strength and low formability. However, this alloy shows superplastic properties that allow for large plastic deformation under certain conditions. Combination of superplastic forming and diffusion bonding(SPF/DB) processes of this alloy has been widely used to replace mechanically fastened structures with reduced weight and fabrication costs. In this study, superplastic forming/diffusion bonding technology has been developed for fabricating lightweight sandwich panels with Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The experimental results show the forming of titanium lightweight sandwich structure is successfully performed from 3 and 4 sheets of Ti-6Al-4V.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 1996.03a
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• pp.172-184
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• 1996

Superplastic forming of thin sheet into complex shape is an important manufacturing process especially in aerospace industry. The main interest in modeling the superplastic forming process is to predict the forming pressure cycle to maintain optimum strain rate and the resulting thickness distribution. Many researchers have attemped to model superplastic forming using the various techniques including finite element method. But in most of their researches have disregarded the strain hardening effect which which occurs in several superplastic materials. In this study ABAQUS finite element code was used for prediction of process variables for axisymmetric cup forming of Supral 100 and 7075Al alloys considereing strain hardening. The performance of numerical results were compared with the experimental results.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.133-141
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• 2003

When superplastic forming process is employed in manufacturing spherical pressure vessel, the thickness and spherical profile are not constant and varies during the forming process. In the current study, theoretical analysis for the prediction of thickness change was carried out under the consideration of membrane theory which has been employed in Kuglov et. al.'s study. Then the thickness of initial blank to obtain the required thickness at the final forming step, the time vs. pressure profile which yields uniform deformation in blank, and the thickness distribution according to the position at each forming step have been determined. The employed model and the developed analytical code were verified throughout comparing the theoretical predictions at each forming stage with the experimental results shown in literature.