Technical and Cost Study of Superplastic Forming of a Lightweight Aluminum Door Structure

The expanded forming limits associated with superplastic forming (SPF) makes it an attractive option for the manufacture of complex parts from aluminum sheet. In this work SPF is used as an enabling technology to remove cost and mass from a multi-piece aluminum door inner structure. In the new design, panels manufactured using SPF are applied to consolidate parts and eliminate the use of expensive castings and stampings. The functional requirements of the new door system were confirmed with CAE while the ability to superplastically form the parts was confirmed with unique finite element tools specifically developed for the process. Finally, a technical cost model was applied to determine the cost of the SPF parts and to compare them with the actual part costs of the original design. This article was presented at Materials Science & Technology 2006, Innovations in Metal Forming symposium held in Cincinnati, OH, October 15-19, 2006.