The specific challenge in the implementation of magnesium sheet as a lightweight material is to manufacture sheets with an acceptable formability at room temperature and sheet components with a suitable strength. One approach to achieve this is to increase the strength of the components by precipitation hardening. To realize this goal, the DFG is funding the FESTIMAG project, in which the Institute of Material and Process Design at the Helmholtz-Center Hereon is cooperating with the Institute of Forming Technology and Machines at the Leibniz University Hannover. The aim of this project is to qualify a suitable composition of the sheet alloy and its manufacturing process in a way that precipitation hardening is enabled after the final forming process. The focus is using the precipitation morphology and the rapid solidification twin roll casting process to find an optimum microstructure for sheet metal forming and to increase the strength of the formed component by heat treatment.
This paper reports on the work carried out in the area of alloy development, the initial sheet manufacturing, the development of a suitable heated deep-drawing tool and the subsequent deep-drawing process. First results show that magnesium sheets made from Mg-Zn-Al-Ca exhibit good forming properties even after rolling from the slab, as well as an increase in hardness after a suitable heat treatment. The production route of the sheets via the twin roll casting process increases both the ductility of the sheets as well the hardness after the heat treatment. This paper presents results of rolling experiments with different feedstocks of Mg-Zn-Al-Ca alloys, the microstructures and textures resulting from these experiments, as well as their mechanical properties and Erichsen values. In addition, various heat treatments were carried out to increase hardness. The second part of the paper deals with the development of a suitable heated deep-drawing tool and shows the heat distribution in the tool as well as first results of the deep-drawing tests.