Review: Magnesium Sheet Alloy Development for Room Temperature Forming

Sheet metal forming operations in the automotive industry, including stamping, flanging, bending, hemming and trimming, are dominantly done at room temperature (RT). Unfortunately, the poor RT formability of magnesium due to its hexagonal close-packed structure and generally strong texture has limited the use of these processes in high-volume automotive production. However, the formability of magnesium can be improved via fine grain structure and random texture to enable some RT forming operations. This paper presents the latest magnesium alloy development and evaluation by the United States Automotive Materials Partnership (USAMP) in collaboration with its university partners. A new sheet alloy developed in a recent USAMP project, ZAXME11100 (USAMP Alloy 2 Plus), offers excellent ductility (31% tensile elongation) and RT formability (7.8 mm Erichsen index) in a solution-treated condition (T4), and a high yield strength (270 MPa) upon post-forming aging treatment (T6), promising RT forming for automotive applications.