Characterising the acoustoplastic effect in an ultrasonically assisted metal forming process

An investigation through experiments and finite element analysis (FEA) has been carried out to study the effects of applying ultrasonic oscillations to the lower platen in forming tests for two different metals. Previous research has shown that by applying ultrasonic vibrations to the lower platen in compression tests on pure aluminium specimens, the resulting stress-strain relationship can be characterised by a temporary effective softening of the material properties during intervals of ultrasonic excitation. The current research demonstrates this effect in two different metal specimens and additionally shows that finite element simulations can be used to model the behaviour in terms of both volume and surface effects. In this study, the ultrasonic excitation was introduced both prior to and post yield and the process simulations were developed in the FEA software Abaqus. The data recorded from experiments and predicted by the FEA illustrate how ultrasonically assisted metal forming can result in a lowering of the static flow stress, consistent with the effective material softening proposed previously in studies of the acoustoplastic effect.