A study on forging of aluminum-based metal matrix composites

Due to its lightweight and high specific strength, aluminum-based metal matrix composites have drawn much attention from the forging industry for manufacturing structural components. In the present study, the forging formability of the aluminum-based metal matrix composites A6061/Al2O3 was investigated with both the experimental approaches and the finite element analysis. The compression tests were conducted to obtain the stress-strain curves for the A6061/Al2O3 composites at elevated temperatures ranging from the room temperature to 500°C under various strain rates of 0.05s-1, 0.5s-1 and 5s-1, respectively. The forging of a structural part with characteristic geometry features, including a circular cup at the top and a boss at the bottom, was also performed in the present study to investigate the forging formability of the A6061/Al2O3 metal-matrix composites. The consistency between the experimental data and the finite element simulation results confirms the validity of the finite element analysis on the forging formability of the A6061/Al2O3 metal-matrix composite and the die design proposed in the present study.