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Recent developments in the field of manufacturing techniques and alloy development of light materials are reviewed. In the field of manufacturing Aluminium based components, special attention is given to casting, including liquid forging and semi-solid forming technology while for sheet metal forming technology the focus is on material properties and process technology in superplastic forming. For the manufacturing of Magnesium-based components, special attention is given to casting processes and alloy development for casting. For wrought Magnesium, material properties control is covered. For Titanium-based components, an overview of the latest additions to high strength alloys are given, including non-linear elasticity as demonstrated by materials like GUM Metal™. Advanced forming technology such as Levi Casting are also treated.

Advanced forming technologies have been evolving at a rapid pace with the products applicability in the industrial fields of aerospace and automobile especially for the materials like aluminum and titanium alloys (light weight) and ultra-high strength steels. Innovative forming methods like hydroforming (tube and sheet) have been proposed for industries throughout the world. The ever-increasing needs of the automotive industry have made hydroforming technology an impetus one for the development and innovations. In this paper, the review on various developments towards lightweight materials for different applications is presented. The influencing process parameters considering the different characteristics of the tube and sheet hydroforming process have also been presented. General ideas and mechanical improvements in sheet and tube hydroforming are given late innovative work exercises. This review will help researchers and industrialists about the history, state of the art in hydroforming technologies of the lightweight materials.

An anisotropic visco-hyperelastic constitutive model for rate-temperature-dependent deformation during one-step hot stamping forming simulation of unidirectional (UD) CF/PEEK prepregs is presented. This constitutive model is based on strain energy decomposition and a multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient. Two simple Maxwell models are used to characterize the viscoelastic behavior of the melted PEEK matrix and longitudinal shear deformation, respectively, and a shear invariant of $I_{\mathrm{\text{sh}}}=I_5-I_4$ is proposed to calculate the shear deformation. Moreover, the fiber stretching deformation is modeled by an anisotropic hyperelastic model. To obtain the model parameters, tensile tests at different strain rates and temperatures above the melt temperature of PEEK are performed on $0^{\circ }$, $10^{\circ }$, and $90^{\circ }$ CF/PEEK prepreg specimens, respectively. In parallel, the [0]₈ and [45]₈ curved beam specimens are experimentally fabricated to validate the constitutive model. The VUMAT subroutine is developed according to the proposed constitutive model and applied for a $10-40^{\circ }$ off-axis tensile simulation and hot-stamping forming simulation of CF/PEEK prepregs. The experimental and simulation results show that the materials flow, distribution of strain and stress, forming defects (wrinkles and overlap) of CF/PEEK curved beam can be captured by the proposed model.

This paper proposes a forming technology of AZ80A magnesium alloy automotive wheel, which collects the superplastic compound extrusion and the bulging technology of rigid die. By using dynamic recrystallization superplasticity, the new method completes the forming for complex auto wheel successfully. It has the advantages of simple process, high forming efficiency and compact structure.