FORMABILITY OF TAILORED BLANKS

Toyota has applied laser-welded tailored blanks for stamping side pane l, door inner, front side member and many other auto body panels. Judg ment on the formability in actual panel stamping is difficult, because the behavior in press forming of the portion near the weld lines diff ers from the base material. We have obtained by experiments the formin g limits of the welded area for each of the basic forming patterns: St retch forming, flanging and deep drawing. The results have been used e ffectively in judging formability of actual parts stamping. (C) 1997 P ublished by Elsevier Science S.A.