Deep drawing of round cups from tailor-welded blanks

Recent developments in the welding technology and the considerations regarding material cost, dimensional accuracy and weight, force automakers and appliance manufacturers to use tailor-welded blanks in their stamping operations. The welding of blanks with different thicknesses, materials and/or surface conditions introduces many challenging formability problems for process development and tool design. In cooperation with industrial partners, projects are being conducted at the ERC for Net Shape Manufacturing to study the formability of tailor-welded blanks and develop guidelines for tool design. This paper gives a summary of the preliminary work done on the deep drawing of round cups from tailor-welded blanks.