Forming Behaviour at Elevated Temperature of a Laser Heat-Treated AZ31 Magnesium Alloy Sheet

The tailoring of mechanical and technological properties of the initial material in sheet metal forming has been widely investigated and successfully applied. The benefits of such an approach can be found in the improvement of both the post-forming performances of the manufactured component and the forming process capabilities. Different strategies can be found and most of them involve a microstructural alteration by a selective heat source (e.g. laser, induction, UV light). The use of aluminium alloys combined with these strategies has been extensively investigated, while magnesium alloys are almost not yet considered from this viewpoint. In this work, we investigated the effect of a selective laser heat treatment on an AZ31 magnesium alloy sheet. After laser heat treating a single track in the centre of a blank with different heat input values, bulge tests at elevated temperatures were conducted. The dome height evolution was continuously acquired during the tests and differences between the untreated specimen and the laser treated ones have been characterized. The effect of the laser treatment was evaluated also in terms of thickness distribution of the formed specimens. A thickness discontinuity was found along the treated specimens in the transition zone between the treated and the untreated material. Results highlighted that an effective change in the forming behaviour can be induced in the treated zone depending on the laser heat input. It has thus been shown that this approach can be employed for tailoring the magnesium alloy blank properties prior to the gas forming at elevated temperatures.