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Aluminum extrusions are used in the automotive industry for body structure applications requiring cross-section design flexibility, high section stiffness, and high strength. Heat-treatable 6xxx series extrusion alloys have typically been used in automotive due to commercial availability, competitive cost, high strength, and impact performance. This paper presents a characterization study of mechanical properties of 6xxx series aluminum extrusions using digital image correlation (DIC). DIC has been used to capture spatial strain distribution and its evolution in time during material deformation. The materials of study were seamless and structural 6061 and 6082 extrusions. The alloys have been tensile tested using an MTS load frame with a dual optical camera system to capture the stereoscopic digital images. Notable results include the differing anisotropy of seamless and structural extrusions, as well as the influence of artificial aging on anisotropy.

Flanging is a secondary operation in sheet metal forming processes. Traditionally, the design of flange shape and trim line is based on an engineer's experience. It takes several iterations to achieve the desired flange geometry because of potential splits. In this paper, an efficient CAE-based tool is developed to quickly predict the formability of a given flange design and enable the optimization of trim lines. A numerical algorithm is formulated in this CAE tool to convert the 3D flanging process into an equivalent in-plane deformation problem. The developed CAE tool is also integrated with the optimization software LS-OPT for trim line design.