Abstract
The AA5182/polypropylene/AA5182 (AA/PP/AA) sandwich sheets have been developed for the application for automotive body panels in the future light weight vehicles with significant weight reduction. It has been reported that the 5182 aluminum sheet shows Luders band because of dissolved Mg atoms that causes fabrication process problem, especially surface roughness. The examination of serration behavior has been made after the tensile deformation of the AA/PP/AA sandwich sheets as well as that of the 5182 aluminum skin at room and elevated temperatures. All sandwich sheets and the 5182 aluminum skin showed serration phenomena on their flow curves. However, the magnitude of the serration was significantly diminished in the sandwich sheet with the high volume fraction of the polypropylene core. According to the results of the surface roughness analysis after the tensile test, the sandwich sheet evidently showed lower Luders band depth than the 5182 aluminum skin. Strain rate sensitivity, m-value, of the 5182 aluminum skin was -0.006. By attaching this skin with polypropylene core which has relatively large positive value, 0.050, m-value of the sandwich sheets was changed to the positive value. The serration reduction of the sandwich sheets was quantitatively investigated in the point of the effect on the polypropylene core thickness variation, that on the strain rate sensitivity. It was found that the serration reduction degree from the experimental results of the sandwich sheet was higher than that from the calculated values by the rule of mixture based on volume fraction of the skins and the core.
