FORMING PROCESSES OF DURALUMIN

Ayman Malash and Hamdi Kandil

Zagazig University- Cairo-Egypt

 May 1992

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ABSTARCT

This project deals, mainly, with forming one of aluminum alloys containing Cu, Mg, and Mn, namely, the duralumin. This alloy is considered the backbone of the aerospace industry because of its very high strength-to-density ratio. But at the same time, it is difficult to form because of the presence of Mg, which is required for increasing their strength.

This project has been carried out in some military factory, on one of the factory products, which is a part in a projectile head that has a countered profile. The main idea in this project is to produce the part of interest by forming processes instead of casting, which is expensive.

There tow forming techniques could be used for the production of this part from standard material; either by deep drawing or by special tube sinking. The latter technique was adopted in this project.

In deep drawing, standard sheets are used where large numbers of dies, equipment, and intermediate heat treatment processes are required. This will be briefly explained in chapter.

In tube sinking, standard tubes are used which are more expensive than sheets. In this technique, the forming operation is done in two steps, reducing the diameter of the standard tube to the maximum part diameter, then forming the contoured surface with a special die.