Possibility of thickening of 1050 aluminum sheet by an incremental flatting process

Abstract

Conventionally, sheet metal wastes with bend corners, such as automotive body panels and electric household appliance cases have been recycled through the smelting process. The smelting process has a recycling problem in which a large amount of CO₂ emissions arises. To overcome this problem, without the smelting process, sheet metal wastes with bend corners are required to be unbent to flat sheet. Although these sheet metal wastes can be unbent to flat sheets, the thickness of the unbent sheet decreases along the bend line. Here, we propose an incremental flatting process in which the bent sheet can be thickened with flatting. For the purpose of clarifying adequacy of this proposed method, thickening behavior of 1050 aluminum sheets during the flatting was experimentally investigated. Experimental results suggested that bent sheets were flatted and, simultaneously, sheets thickness were increased. Farther, it was found that the thickening phenomenon was affected by blank holding conditions.