Experimental and FE simulation validation of sheet thickness optimization in superplastic forming of Al alloy

Superplasticity is the ability of a polycrystalline materials to exhibit very large elongations without necking prior to failure. In this paper, the superplastic forming potential of fine grained 7075 aluminium alloy was studied. The process parameters like pressure, forming time and initial sheet thickness were selected, using the design of experiments technique. The same condition of formation process was attempted in the finite element simulation using ABAQUS software. The deviation of the thickness distribution between the simulation and experiment was made and the variation lies within 8%.