Effect of Electromagnetic Ring Expansion on the Mechanical Property of A5083 Aluminum Alloy

Electromagnetic forming (EMF) is a promising metal-forming process for complex geometrical shape and light-weight construction. Ring expansion is one of the basic EMFs wherein the workpiece is under nearly uniform tensile stress. The final strains of the rings at different discharge voltages are measured. It is found that the strain increases with the voltage. The strain can exceed the maximum strain in the ASTM standard tension test when the voltage is higher than 8 kV, and it has the largest improvement of 53% at 9 kV. The Vickers hardness is also measured at each voltage. Also, a rising trend is observed as the voltage increases. The highest hardness is found at 9 kV with a value of 110.1. It has an increase of 46% compared to the ring without expansion. Finally, the microstructure of the expanded ring is observed with the electron backscatter diffraction technique.