FORMABILITY OF A COMMERCIALLY PURE ZIRCONIUM SHEET

To examine the formability of sheet zirconium in forming processes, so me fundamental sheet forming tests, i.e. the deep drawing, the Erichse n and the bore-expanding tests are carried out for a commercially-pure zirconium sheet. The tensile properties are also examined by uniaxial tension tests in the directions of 0 degrees, 45 degrees and 90 degre es to the rolling direction, and the relationship of them to the defor mation behaviour in sheet forming processes is discussed. Due to a lar ge value of the normal anisotropy parameter, r, the zirconium sheet sh ows the quite high drawability, whilst the stretchability is low. Due to strong planar anisotropy, very large ears are formed in deep drawin g. It is noted that the forming limits in the deep drawing and bore-ex panding process decrease with the punch profile radius. (C) 1998 Elsev ier Science S.A. All rights reserved.