Free and Die Forming of Circular Metallic Plates Using Gas Mixture Detonation of O2 and C2H2: An Experimental Study

In the last decade, the gas mixture detonation forming (GDF) method has been introduced as a novel and alternative method instead of other high-velocity forming (HVF) methods such as explosive method. Due to the lack of research in this field, the present study investigates the free and die forming of circular metallic plates under gas mixture detonation loading. In this series of experiments, steel plates with thicknesses of 1, 2, and 3mm, aluminum plates with a thickness of 3mm, and brass plates with a thickness of 1mm were used. Furthermore, the test specimens were loaded in the impulse range of 4.12 to 54.68N·s. For better comparison, the same areal density condition was considered to compare the results of steel, aluminum, and brass plates under the same loading conditions. Experimental results showed that using a die with an apex angle of 60° leads to the decrease of the maximum permanent deflection by 14.8, 20.2, and 21.4% in 1, 2, and 3mm steel plates, respectively. Under the same loading and areal density conditions, for free forming, the use of aluminum and brass plates lead to increasing the maximum permanent deflection by 19.4 and 13.1% compared to the steel sample, respectively. However, in die forming, these values were 5 and 2%, respectively. Also, the comparison of the results for aluminum and brass plates shows that the using die forming reduces the maximum permanent deflection of the specimen by 12.1 and 10.6%.