Macrodyne at Automotive Lightweight Materials USA 2023 – Speaker Session

By oscillating the pressurized gas within an SPF mold, AEM Power Systems is developing an innovative and disruptive new forming technology. The new process, Gas Oscillation Superplastic Forming (“GO-SPF”) has the potential to significantly improve the formability of Aluminum and Titanium sheets. This allows for the forming of significantly more geometrically complex shaped products, while starting with thinner materials. Macrodyne Technologies, North America’s largest Hydraulic Press Manufacturer, and AEM are collaborating to integrate gas oscillation forming technology into Macrodyne’s Superplastic Forming presses.

The GO-SPF process utilizes gas oscillation forming technology as a system that is engineered to generate and transfer minor gas oscillations of various frequencies and amplitudes into a pressurized chamber of a superplastic blow-forming tool. Minor gas oscillations subject the forming material to undergo partial stress relief during each oscillation cycle. An experimental research and development program has revealed that the application of a minor superimposing oscillating load onto a monotonically increasing tensile load leads to a significant improvement in the formability of AA5083 and other materials.  Application of minor oscillating load at specific amplitudes and frequencies can significantly improve material elongation, thickness uniformity, and forming speed. These results were experimentally confirmed for a range of strain rates 0.001-0.500 per second and will be discussed during the presentation. FEA simulation of AA5083 Aluminum sheet with SPF and GO-SPF process for selected part geometry will be presented for comparison purposes.

GO-SPF Technology is the first real advancement being introduced to the Superplastic blow forming process in decades and will benefit the automotive and other industries when forming body panels, including doors, fenders, lift fates, roofs, floor panels, and other automotive parts. The patented technology transforms the decades-old conventional SPF process into Gas Oscillation – SPF providing benefits such as light-weighting opportunities: significantly reduced forming times, thinner materials, lower operating costs, and increased quality. The ability to form more complex parts and the ability to form parts significantly faster, will open the door to forming parts that were never considered for SPF manufacturing in the past due to costs and/or processing speeds.