Drawing,flanging and hemming of metallic thin sheets: A multi-step process

This study deals with the multi-step classical hemming process on samples with complex geometries and a pre-strain state linked to the forming of curved surface. The influence of taking the anisotropy and the Bauschinger effect into account on the roll-in and loads is studied. The design of a specific device was realised so as to compare the numerical results and the experimental values. The simulations show a certain relevance in the use of shell elements compared to solid elements despite their use restriction, and good correlation between the calculations and the tests. The roll-in differences and the level of stress reached are low at the end of pre-hemming and hemming, although a significant rotation of sections which are initially perpendicular to the mean fiber is observed during flanging.     

Dietary polyphenols and the prevention of diseases

Polyphenols are the most abundant antioxidants in the diet and are widespread constituents of fruits, vegetables, cereals, dry legumes, chocolate, and beverages, such as tea, coffee, or wine. Experimental studies on animals or cultured human cell lines support a role of polyphenols in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, or osteoporosis. However, it is very difficult to predict from these results the effects of polyphenol intake on disease prevention in humans. One of the reasons is that these studies have often been conducted at doses or concentrations far beyond those documented in humans. The few clinical studies on biomarkers of oxidative stress, cardiovascular disease risk factors, and tumor or bone resorption biomarkers have often led to contradictory results. Epidemiological studies have repeatedly shown an inverse association between the risk of myocardial infarction and the consumption of tea and wine or the intake level of some particular flavonoids, but no clear associations have been found between cancer risk and polyphenol consumption. More human studies are needed to provide clear evidence of their health protective effects and to better evaluate the risks possibly resulting from too high a polyphenol consumption.     

Occurrence and numerical prediction of surface defects during flanging of metallic sheets

Surface defects can develop on automotive exterior panels after drawing and flanging steps, during springback and may alter significantly the vehicle quality. These defects are characterized by a small depth below 0.5 mm and are then difficult to detect numerically. This study focuses on the surface defects for two parts: an industrial upper corner of a front door and a L-shaped part designed on purpose to reproduce at a small scale surface defects that occur after flanging. Dimensions of these defects are measured from profiles obtained either with a non-contacting method or a tridimensional measuring machine. Numerical simulations of the processes are performed with the commercial codes PamStamp2G or Abaqus and deformed meshes are analyzed in the same way as the experimental data. There is a good correlation between experiments and simulations concerning the spatial position of the defect and their dimensions. Moreover, a buckling analysis during springback is performed for the L-shaped part, showing that the position of the defect corresponds to one of the buckling mode.     

Influence of ductile damage on the bending behaviour of aluminium alloy thin sheets

Sheet metal forming involves planar stress states, in the sheet plane, like in tension and simple shear, or stress states characterized by a gradient in the thickness, like in bending. In this latter case, material limit prediction derived from an instability criterion is no longer valid. In this work, a criterion based on a critical void volume fraction, identified from macroscopic tests, is applied to the case of bending of square samples of aluminium alloy AA6016-T4. Mechanical tests are performed at two aging times to quantify its influence on the mechanical behaviour and only the hardening law is modified to take it into account. It is shown that a good correlation is obtained between the critical void volume fraction obtained from tension on notched samples and biaxial expansion, and the onset of crack development in the bent zone. Moreover, macroscopic load recorded during bending is sensitive to ductile damage, which makes this test particularly interesting for damage investigation.     

Characterization of surface defects after flanging of metallic sheets

This paper deals with surface defects of automobile outer panels, which alter significantly the vehicle quality. Such defects occur during springback, after forming or flanging steps, and are characterized by concave depression of small amplitude over the convex shape of the part. The aim of this work is to reproduce at the laboratory scale a surface defect that occurs after flanging on a geometry similar to a door upper corner. A dedicated device has been designed in order to generate small size surface defects during flanging of metallic thin sheets. The outer surface of the sample was digitalized and the spatial geometry of the defect was evaluated from curvature change along 2D profiles. This study shows that the flanging height does not influence significantly the surface defect geometry whereas the flanging radius and the corner radius modify the defect depth. Finite element simulations were also performed to compare numerical depth of the defect with experiments and also to investigate the stress and strain states in the defect area. It was shown that the spatial location of the defect is well predicted but its depth was either over- or under-estimated. Moreover, strains remained very small in the defect area, and a compression state prevailed after flanging, whereas a stress gradient developed through the thickness after springback.     

Neuroglial heterotopia. Apropos of 8 cases with non-nasofrontal sites

Endothelin-1 (ET-1), a peptide isolated from the culture medium of endothelial cells, mediates a variety of physiological and pathological responses including mitogenesis. We have compared the expression of ET receptors in untransformed versus ras-transformed NIH-3T3 murine fibroblasts and in untransformed versus SV40-transformed W138 (VA13) human fibroblasts by ligand binding and Northern analysis. NIH-3T3 and W138 cells displayed high affinity (200 and 220 pM) and high density (23,000 sites/cell and 14,000 sites/cell for NIH-3T3 and W138 cells, respectively) ET receptors. Competition binding experiments using subtype-selective ligands identified these receptors as the ETA subtype. Addition of ET-1 to the cells produced a concentration-dependent increase in intracellular calcium release. Both ras-transformed NIH-3T3 cells and SV40-transformed W138 cells (VA13) completely lacked [125I]ET-1 binding and failed to release calcium when exposed to ET-1. Northern analysis of the polyadenylated RNA (polyA RNA) isolated from untransformed and transformed cells revealed that the steady-state level of ETA receptor RNA was 90-95% less in transformed cells compared to untransformed cells. Thus, the loss of ET receptors as well as the receptor-mediated responses in transformed cells can be explained by down-regulation of ET receptor mRNA.     

Comparison of the work hardening of metallic sheets in bending-unbending and simple shear

Constitutive equations for sheet metals are important input data for the numerical simulation of forming processes. Their identification usually comes from uniaxial tensile tests at several orientations to the rolling direction and from equibiaxial tests. To characterize the kinematic part of the work hardening, strain path reversals are needed and different mechanical tests have been developed, such as tension-compression and simple shear. The aim of this work is to investigate the influence of the database used for identification, by using either bending-unbending or simple shear for strain path reversal. This study is performed both on an aluminum alloy and a TRIP steel. The presented results show that, for a limited strain range, the experiments are consistent.