Electrically-assisted tension and cover forming of high-temperature Ti-55 titanium alloy

It is difficult to predict the material deformation behaviour in the electrically assisted forming process due to the low relevance for “electrical-thermal-force” of three-field coupling. In this study, a model for the “electrical-thermal-force” of three-field coupling was implemented using a commercial finite element (FE) software ABAQUS with the constitutive equation to simulate the tensile deformation and electrically assisted forming cover of Ti-55 alloy under the action of electric current. The effects of current density and temperature distribution on electrically assisted forming of Ti-55 alloy were studied based on the finite element method (FEM). The temperature gradient caused by the current density gradient is the fundamental reason for the nonuniform deformation within the gauge section. The feasibility of electrically assisted forming of Ti-55 alloy complex part was verified through experiments. Four typical areas in the Ti-55 alloy outer cover are similar ranging from 1091 MPa to 1136 MPa, and the plastic elongation is discrepant ranging from 14.8% to 21.4%. This study indicates that the electrically assisted forming process is an available method to produce complex components of difficult-to-deform alloys.