Form Closure by Rolling

Lightweight-design is an ongoing trend in the automotive industry. New materials and processes reveal new opportunities to reduce the weight of car bodies. One option to produce these optimized components is a combination of a steel sheet with a reinforcing aluminium rib structure. By the use of specific surface structures a clamping of the components should be achieved resulting in a high stiffness of the components.
New processes to create the desired structures are developed on a strip profile rolling machine and optimized at the Institute of Metal Forming. The focus here lies on channel-like structures and undercuts. Therefore, experiments and numerical simulations are used. As a result, new tool geometries, suited for different structures, have been designed in numerical simulations and proven in experiments. Depending on the process, the geometry of the structure and the used material, different sized undercuts can be realized.

For further information, please contact Aron Ringel.

Roll Bonding Technology

Roll Bonding is a process to join at least two metals permanently using rolling and possibly higher temperature.
Therewith it is possible to combine different material properties in an economical and reproductive way.
In an especially for this purpose designed basic experiment it is possible to characterize the bond strength between the joining partners under different loads. The generated data is put into a subroutine. Based on this subroutine, numerical simulations are carried out to investigate the development of the bond strength during rolling. Using these results, experiments are performed on the different available mill stands.
Aims are the optimization of existing processes and the development of those for new material combinations. The current research deals with both hot and cold Roll Bonding with different dimensions and material combinations.

For further information, please contact Aron Ringel.

Investigation of Bond Formation and Failure of Metallic Alloys

Roll bonding enables the targeted combination of different materials and thus their mechanical and thermal properties in a single material composite. However, the connection created under pressure load can tear up again due to shear stress at the end of the roll gap. Thus, industrial production requires very long process chains, which are often determined by trial and error. In order to allow for a knowledge based design of such process chains, a basic experiment, using the torsion plastometer TA STD 812, was developed at the Institute of Metal Forming to characterize bond formation and failure. In this test, the connecting partners are heated inductively and joined under combined pressure and shear stress. After bond formation, the strength can be tested at deformation temperature under a combination of tensile, compressive and shear stress. The procedure thus enables testing under near-process conditions.

For further information, please contact Tobias Teeuwen.

Finite-Element Based Process Design for Fabrication of Metal Composites by Roll Bonding

Roll Bonding enables the production of composites with customized combinations of properties. In roll bonding, the bonding partners are permanently joined together by plastic deformation. The bond formation is a complex process influenced by material properties and process parameters. At IBF an Abaqus subroutine has been developed for computing the formation and failure of the bonds. In a DFG transfer project, this subroutine will be further improved to develop efficient process routes for new material combinations. With this subroutine and the Abaqus process model, Roll Bonding can now be mapped. The bond strength is calculated depending on the surface enlargement. The established bond can also loosen again due to unfavorable load condition after roll gap. The influences of parameters such as temperature and height reduction on the bond strength and the bonding status can now be simulated.

For further information, please contact Holger Brüggemann.

Composite Ring Rolling

Composites offer the opportunity to satisfy locally different requirements of parts by combining materials depending on local loads. Contradicting mechanical, thermal or chemical demands can be fulfilled or by combining high-grade and cheap materials, part costs can be reduced.
Likewise for large, seamless rings it is possible to realize tailor-made product properties by producing composite rings, e.g. by using a hard and abrasion-resistant working surface together with a ductile core. The project composite ring rolling aims to identify and describe the main relationships between process parameters and material properties by simulation and experiment to derive suitable rolling strategies and process windows for successful production of composite rings.

For further information, please contact Laurenz Kluge.

Clad Strip Produced by Vertical Strip Casting

Clad metals are found in various applications, since they allow for cost-efficient combination of properties of different metals and alloys. Their wide-spread application means several production methods already exists, albeit each with their own limitations. Their production via vertical strip casting poses an alternative, which exploits the short process route of twin-roll strip casting to address these limitations. The Institute of Metal Forming operates its own twin-roll caster. On this caster a prefabricated strip is inserted into the process and, exploiting the process heat, a bond between prefabricated and cast strip is created in the roll gap. Clad strips with thickness ratios between cast and inserted strip of 6:1 to 10:1 have been realized for various steel alloy pairings. The strips have been subsequently examined to describe and understand the underlying bonding mechanism. As the next step cladding of steel strips with non-ferrous metals via this route is to be researched.

For further information, please contact Max Müller.