Creep age forming of Al-Cu-Li alloy: Application to thick sheet forming of double curvature aircraft panel

Abstract

Creep-age-forming of a thick Al-Cu-Li sheet is studied. An industrial stamping press is used to form a double curvature panel at a reduced scale. This forming, which includes several relaxation steps, is modelled using ABAQUS. A material model describing an elasto-viscoplastic behaviour with anisotropy effect has been identified and implemented in ABAQUS using Fortran subroutine. The numerical model is validated by comparing experiments and numerical results in terms of deformed shapes and an improved forming cycle is suggested.