Analysis of the bulging process of an AZ31B magnesium alloy sheet with a uniform pressure coil

As the lightest metal material, magnesium alloy is widely used in the aerospace, automobile, and consumer electronic industries. However, magnesium alloy sheet has poor formability at room temperature. Electromagnetic forming is a high velocity forming technique that can promote the formability of low ductility materials, improve the strain distribution of workpieces, and reduce their wrinkling and springback. In this work, a uniform pressure coil was used to bulge AZ31B magnesium alloy sheets. The finite element method was then used to analyze this bulging process. The bulging contours and displacements of AZ31B magnesium alloy sheets were consistent with the experiment results. The distribution of the magnetic field intensity and magnetic field forces were found to be better than using a flat spiral coil. The deformation rule of AZ31B magnesium alloy sheet using the uniform pressure coil differed from that using the flat spiral coil. The largest strain occurred at the center of the sheet.