Design of stamping processes of pinless FSWed thin sheets in AA1050 alloy for motomotive applications using FEM

In the present paper, the cold stamping of friction stir welded AA1050-O thin sheets, obtained using a pinless tool, was studied. A preliminary investigation allowed to define the weldability window, in terms of the rotational and welding speed values, leading to joints with the desired mechanical properties. Then, the constitutive behavior of both the parent material and welded zone was characterized by means of uniaxial tensile tests. The constitutive equations obtained by analyzing the experimental results were implemented into the FEM code used to simulate the cold stamping process of FSWed blanks. The virtual prototypes were validated by performing stamping experiments of the FSWed blanks and comparing the predicted and measured results in terms of sheet thickness, and major strain vs. minor strain data.