Congratulations Alexander Barlo, Licentiate in Mechanical Engineering!
- Post by: Tobias Larsson
- 11th April 2023
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Alexander Barlo presented his licentiate thesis entitled “Failure Prediction of Complex Load Cases in Sheet Metal Forming: Emphasis on Non-Linear Strain Paths, Stretch-Bending and Edge Effects” in front of an +50 people hybrid audience of online listeners and physically present people.
Alex made a popular presentation of the background of his research and the findings up until this point. Thesis consists of a summary part and four individual research publications and then landed in a summary of his findings. Alex has been working within applied projects like Predict and I-Stamp and together with partners like Volvo Cars, RISE, SSAB, Alfa Laval, Scania, AB Volvo, Autoform etc and with funding from VINNOVA and KKS.
Opponent for the day was Professor Karl-Brian Nielsen of Vestas Aircoil och Syddansk Universitet. Karl-Brian dug deeper into details of the thesis to explore what Alex had done, and not, in order to enrich the knowledge around the material, and also to understand the different viewpoints of Alex research, leading up to a valuable discussion.
At the end also the audience had the chance to ask questions on the research.
Examiner Professor Tobias Larsson then concluded by declaring that Alex had passed the exam and achieved the licentiate degree. The event was rounded up with cake and beer, Danish style!
Thesis abstract
With the increased focus on reducing carbon emissions in today’s society, severalindustries have to overcome new challenges, where especially the automotive industryis under a lot of scrutiny to deliver improved and more environmentallyfriendly products. To meet the demands from customers and optimize vehiclesaerodynamically, new cars often contain complex body geometries, together withadvanced materials that are introduced to reduce the total vehicle weight.With the introduction of the complex body components and advanced materials,one area in the automotive industry that has to overcome these challenges is manufacturingengineering, and in particular the departments working with the sheetmetal forming process. In this process complex body component geometries can lead to non-linear strain paths and stretch bending load cases, and newly introducedadvanced materials can be prone to exhibit behaviour of edge cracks not observedin conventional sheet metals.This thesis takes it onset in the challenges seen in industry today with predictingfailure of the three complex load cases: Non-Linear Strain Paths, Stretch-Bending,and Edge Cracks. Through Finite Element simulation attempts are made to accuratelypredict failure caused by aforementioned load cases in industrial componentsor experimental setups in an effort to develop post-processing methods that are applicableto all cases.
Keywords: Sheet Metal Forming, Failure Prediction, Non-Linear Strain Paths, Stretch-Bending, Edge Effects
Thesis link: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-24300