Thermal formability of titanium tailor-welded blanks

Due to the shift of market trends and increasing awareness of the need to be environmentally friendly, the most important task facing manufacturers is to reduce the part weight significantly without impinging on its function. Use of the light-weight alloys is becoming important in the material selection stage. One of the most common light alloys is titanium alloys. The applications of titanium alloy are not widespread, however, owing to its high cost. To minimize the weight and cost of products and maximize the efficiency and functions of the material usage, tailor-welded blank technology can be combined with the light-weight alloy and applied during the production stage. However, the forming capability of a light-weight alloy and its tailor-welded blanks are relatively limited. In order to counter these disadvantages, one solution is to use temperature as the process parameters during the forming operation. This can increase the ductility significantly and reduce the yield strengths, forces and pressures during the forming process. This chapter will give an overview of he research activities examination titanium tailor-welded blanks under thermal forming condition.