Int J Adv Manuf Technol
DOI 10.1007/s00170-016-8488-5
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
On the comparison of formability of roll-bonded steel-Cu
composite sheet metal in incremental forming and stamping
processes
Khalid A. Al-Ghamdi 1 & G. Hussain 2
Received: 2 November 2015 / Accepted: 3 February 2016
# Springer-Verlag London 2016
Abstract The laminates of dissimilar metals are roll bonded
to engineer composite in order to satisfy specific industrial
needs. In the present study, the steel-Cu roll-bonded compos-
ite sheet is annealed to reduce the hardening effects and sub-
jected to various characterization tests including formability
tests in pressing (stamping) and incremental forming (single-
point incremental forming (SPIF)). The hole drill tests show
that the magnitude of residual stresses reduces from −40 to
−1 MPa as the temperature increases from 0 to 700 °C.
Besides the stresses, annealing is observed to affect the inter-
facial microstructure of laminates. The formation of an inter-
metallic Cu80Fe20 is detected through electron-dispersive
spectroscope (EDS) analysis. However, the thickness of its
layer is measured to be too small (i.e., 5 μm) to influence
the mechanical properties/formability of the composite sheet,
clarifying that any variation in the composite properties, if
occurs due to annealing, would be a sole effect of correspond-
ing change in the stress magnitude. Further, the formability in
both of SPIF and stamping is found to increase as the anneal-
ing temperature increases. Comparing the formability in the
two processes, the minimum increase in the formability of-
fered by SPIF is recorded to be 923 %, a way greater than that
reported for the monolithic sheets in the literature. This mega
difference between the formability of the two processes, as per
* G. Hussain
ghulam.hussain@giki.edu.pk; gh_ghumman@hotmail.com
Khalid A. Al-Ghamdi
kaaalghamdi@kau.edu.sa
1
Department of Industrial Engineering, King Abdulaziz University,
Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
2
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, GIK Institute of Engineering
Sciences & Technology, Topi, KP, Pakistan
microscopic observations, is attributed to a fact that the form-
ability of steel-Cu composite sheet in stamping is limited by
delamination and coalescence of voids whereas these failure
processes do not visibly appear in SPIF of the said sheet.
These findings lead to a conclusion that SPIF can be a prom-
ising alternative of stamping to produce roll-bonded compos-
ite sheet components.
Keywords Composite sheet . Roll bonding . Residual stress .
Formability . Failure
1 Introduction
Because of offering exclusive combination of properties, the
composites are gaining increasing popularity as the product
material. These materials are fabricated either through mixing
particles/fibers into a continuous phase or by joining the lam-
inates of dissimilar materials. The latter type is called laminar
composite or composite sheet. The structure and layup of
composite sheet are engineered to satisfy particular objec-
tive(s) in terms of performance and cost. For instance, the
combination of Cu and Al laminates offers 50 % reduction
in weight and 35 % reduction in cost with the equivalent
conductivity of Cu [1]. The combination of ductile steel and
stiff steel simultaneously fulfills the multiple objectives of
high strength, high formability, and low cost [2]. The bonded
laminates of stainless steel and Cu offer an optimum trade-off
among fracture toughness, strength, and radiation resistance
for fusion reactor application [3]. The Cu-laminated steel
sheet improves the corrosion resistance and reduces the over-
all cost of the material.
Metal forming is an important manufacturing technique for
the production of sheet metal parts. A number of investiga-
tions with emphasis on forming of composite sheet

components have been performed. Oya et al. [4] conducted
both numerical and experimental studies of multi-laminate
steel sheets in bending, hemming, and stretching and found
that the formability of hard layers increased comparative to
monolithic sheet(s). Inoue et al. [2] studied the ductile behav-
ior of layered steels and found that the fracture elongation
increases as the layer’s thickness decreases. Mori and
Kurimoto [5] determined the forming limits of an SS/Al com-
posite sheet through bending and tension tests. Yoshida and
Hino [6] developed a mathematical model to assess the form-
ability of bonded sheets and validated it through experiments.
In another study, Hino et al. [7] studied the spring back be-
havior of bi-layered sheet metal in draw bending. Ohashi et al.
[8] and Syn et al. [9] examined the effect of layering to show
that an increase in the number of layers improves the tensile
ductility of layered sheet metal(s). Lang et al. [10] studied the
influence of parameters on multi-sheet hydroforming. Atrin
et al. [11] performed parametric study on the drawability of
steel-brass composite sheet and concluded that layering se-
quence affects the properties of the final product. They also
proposed that the finite element analysis can be used as a tool
to optimize the process. Manesh and Taheri [12] investigated
the influence of annealing on the bond strength and press
formability of Al-steel roll-bonded laminates and proposed
suitable heat treatment conditions to realize an optimum com-
bination of these two performace measures. Kapiński [13]
investigated the formability and geometrical accuracy in deep
drawing of bi-metal sheets.
The composite sheet metal parts with divergent character-
istics (such as corrosion resistance and thermal conductivity)
have found numerous applications ranging from automobile
components to medical instruments [14]. The press forming
operations have been dominantly employed to produce parts
from composite sheet metals. These operations require
dedicated punches and dies and involve long lead time
to set up a batch of parts. Moreover, in order to justify
the high tooling cost, the lot size is set to be reasonably
large. Due to these reasons, the conventional forming
operations are deemed to be feasible only for large-
scale production hence.
On the other hand, the increasing customization trend re-
quires product manufacturing in small lots or even in single-
piece batches. Obviously, the existing conventional processes
cannot cope with this new compelling demand pattern in an
economical way. Therefore, the new manufacturing tech-
niques flexible in producing part geometry need to be devised
and deployed in the manufacturing industry. In the recent past,
a number of trials were made to achieve such a goal, and as a
result, many new manufacturing methods were invented in-
cluding water jet forming, laser forming, and single-point in-
cremental forming [15, 16]. Of these, single-point incremental
forming (SPIF) has gained popularity because it offers dieless
3D shaping and contrary to conventional forming involve
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
shorter setup time and low processing cost specifically for
short production runs [17–20].
As the laminated sheet metal combines properties from
different metallic laminates, its deformation behavior is essen-
tially different from that of monolithic metallic sheets. Due to
the possibility of delamination during deformation, the
forming of laminated sheets has been reported to be very de-
manding in the literature of conventional forming [5, 12, 21].
SPIF, on the contrary, performs localized deformation and
imposes large compressive hydrostatic stresses onto the sheet
[22–25]. Therefore, the chances of failure due to delamination
in SPIF could be comparatively low. In SPIF, investigations
on epoxy-bonded sandwich panels/laminates with foam/glass
fiber sheet as a supporting core have been conducted [20].
However, a very limited amount of efforts has been spent to
explore the behavior of metallurgically bonded laminates [26].
The first study on the SPIF of metallic laminates with met-
allurgical bond at interface (to be referred as composite sheet
metal onwards) was performed by the authors in [26]. The
steel and Cu laminates stacked in Cu-steel-Cu sequence and
bonded through cold rolling process were annealed to reduce
work-hardening effects. It was shown that both of the ductility
and formability increase, and the bond force at the laminate
interface decreases as the annealing temperature increases.
These findings provide the firsthand knowledge on the SPIF
of roll-bonded composite sheet metal(s). The causes for the
reported observations, however, were not analyzed which is
an important task to be performed for thorough understanding
of the process/mechanism involved. The present study sat-
isfies this deficiency. Moreover, SPIF is believed to offer
higher formability of monolithic sheet metal than con-
ventional pressing (stamping) [16, 19]. However, if this
is applicable to composite sheet metal and if so then by
which extent is not documented so far in the literature.
The fracture mechanism, which by providing insight in-
to the forming process and failure causes helps taking
appropriate measures for delaying failure, varies from
process to process and material to material [27]. What
causes and processes are involved in the failure of roll-
bonded composite sheet when subjected to forming in
pressing and SPIF: Investigations into this direction are
also included in the present study.
To fulfill the above goals, a number of characteriza-
tion tests are carried out on the steel-Cu composite
sheet. Hole drill tests are done to find relationship be-
tween the residual stresses and annealing temperature in
order to explain the reasons of observations reported in
the previous study [26]. The formability tests both in
SPIF and pressing (respectively termed as spifability
and stampability tests) are conducted for the sake of
comparison between the two processes. The microstruc-
ture and failure processes are characterized through op-
tical microscope and SEM and EDS analyses.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
2 Experiments
Cold rolling is an economical way of joining dissimilar sheet
laminates in which a metallurgical bond between the lami-
nates is created through high plastic deformation. For the cur-
rent investigations, the roll-bonded steel-Cu composite sheet
was used as the experimental material. The sheet was obtained
from the supplier with the following specifications: no of
layers = 3, stacking sequence = Cu-steel-Cu, cumulative
thickness = 1 mm, and % cold work = 50 %.
Prior to conducting the formability tests, the composite
sheet samples were annealed to minimize the work-
hardening effects. In the early study by the authors [26], it
was shown that the annealing time (up to 7 h) does not have
any significant effect on the mechanical properties. Therefore,
this time, the annealing was carried out only by varying tem-
perature (i.e., from 450 to 750 °C). In order to quantify the
influence of annealing on the magnitude of residual stresses,
the hole drill tests were carried out following the standard
ASTM E837-13a. The effect of annealing on tensile properties
and bond force of composite sheet is already documented in
[26]; therefore, these tests were not performed again.
The formability of composite sheet metal in SPIF and
stamping was determined under plane strain condition, be-
cause this is the dominant deformation mode in SPIF [16,
19]. To conduct tests, the sheet was cut into small pieces:
150 × 150 mm for spifability and 200 × 100 mm for
stampability. For measuring the deformation strains, the grid
pattern was printed in ink onto the work pieces surface. To
determine spifability, a frustum of cone with wall angle con-
tinuously varying from 43° to 90° was formed till fracture [28]
utilizing a rig and the three-axis numerical control milling
machine. The following parameters were kept fixed: spindle
rotation = nil, step size = 0.3 mm, feed rate = 3.0 m/min. The
tool radius was varied over two levels, however. Ghamdi and
Hussain [25] have proposed a conducive tool radius condition
to obtain the maximum spifability. Therefore, one of the two
levels was opted following the said condition, namely the tool
radius should approximate 2.2 times of the blank thickness
(i.e., 2.2 mm for this case), and the second level was chosen
as 10 mm. Although the spifability tests employing the tool
radius of 2.2 mm were conducted in the previous study [26],
the strains around fracture were not measured; therefore, the
spifability tests in this study were done using both levels of
tool size.
The stampability of steel-Cu sheet was evaluated through
standard limiting dome height (LDH) test [27]. As the objec-
tive was to compare the conventional formability with the
plane strain formability in SPIF, only plane strain samples
were stretched to fracture in LDH tests. The test conditions
were as follows: dome radius = 60 mm, test speed = 2 mm/
min. For each test, two replicates were considered for
obtaining the precise data.
The formability in both of the tests was defined as the
major strain around the fracture point in the respective tests.
To determine the formability, the major axes of the deformed
grids were measured around the fracture points using a tool
maker’s microscope (0.01-mm least count). The measure-
ments were later transformed into true strains using the fol-
lowing relationship:
ε ¼ lnðl=l o Þ ð1Þ
where ε is the true strain, lo is the diameter of circle before
deformation, and l is the diameter of circle after deformation.
To ensure the plane strain deformation and to plot strain points
in the major-minor strain space, the minor axes of the de-
formed grids were also measured to find minor strains.
İn order to determine the fracture limits, firstly the thick-
ness of the samples was measured, corresponding to fracture
points in the respective samples, utilizing a dial gauge (accu-
racy ±0.01 mm). Then, the corresponding thickness strain in
each sample was calculated through the below relationship:
ε3 ¼ lnðT =T o Þ ð2Þ
where T is the average thickness measured corresponding to
fracture and To is the sheet thickness.
The fracture strain(s), in terms of major strain, was finally
calculated using the volume constancy given below:
ε 1 ¼ −ðε 2 þ ε 3 Þ ð3Þ
where ε1 and ε2 are the true strains in the plane of sheet and ε3
is the thickness strain computed using facture thickness.
In order to examine the interfacial microstructure of the
bonded laminates of composite and to investigate delamina-
tion due to deformation, the microscopic examinations were
performed. These investigations were accomplished in two
stages: firstly, after annealing for examining its influence on
the interfacial microstructure of composite sheet, if any, and
secondly, after forming to see if there is any delamination due
to deformation of the laminates. The first task was done using
the SEM equipped with spectroscope for phase analysis, and
the second one was performed with the optical microscope
(CMM-22E).
3 Results
3.1 EDS analysis of interface
Figure 1 shows the SEM micrographs of interface of steel-Cu
composite sheet for two selected conditions, namely non-
annealed and annealed for 7 h at 700 °C. The electron-
dispersive spectroscope (EDS) line test was carried out across
the cross section as indicated in the micrographs. The compo-
sition against seven points (A–G) is listed in the figure. As can
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Fig. 1 The SEM micrographs of 0 Co

selected samples and their EDS 700 Co
analysis

Optical micrograph

Point Non annealed (0 Co) Annealed at 700 Co

Cu Fe Nearest Cu Fe Nearest
Intermetallic Intermetallic
A 98.92 1.08 - 97.99 2.01 -
B 99.23 0.77 - 94.16 5.84 -
C 97.63 2.37 - 93.70 6.30 -
D 2.32 97.68 - 79.64 20.36 Cu80Fe20
E 1.67 98.33 - 8.99 91.01 -
F 2.34 97.66 - 6.22 93.78 -
G 1.89 98.11 - 2.11 97.89 -

be seen, there is no clear evidence for the formation of any
new phase during cold rolling (or welding) of the two lami-
nates (i.e., non-annealed) which is in accordance with the
literature that the solid state welding contrary to the fusion
welding inhibits the formation of intermetallics [29].
However, after undergoing annealing, a new intermetallic
phase (Cu80Fe20) is detected in the laminates as observable
from the figure. This phase most probably had formed
due to the diffusion of atoms at elevated temperature.
As can be noticed from the micrograph, the thickness of
this intermetallic layer in the annealed sample is hardly
5.0 μm or even lesser. For other samples annealed with
lower temperatures, the thickness of layer was even
smaller. This follows that, though annealing caused the
formation of intermetallic, its growth rate during anneal-
ing was very low and was not noticeably affected by
the variation in the annealing temperature. The present
study contrary to [26] reveals that there is formation of
intermetallic, though with very thin layer, when anneal-
ing of roll-bonded steel-Cu composite sheet is per-
formed. This discrepancy can be reasoned to a fact that
the interfacial analysis in the previous work [26] was
done through optical microscope (limited capacity),
while in the present study, it was conducted using so-
phisticated SEM coupled with spectroscope.
Different findings have been reported in the literature re-
garding the growth of brittle intermetallic layer. Manesh and
Taheri [12] reported that intermetallic phase formed at the
interface of Al-steel-bonded sheet when annealed for 3 plus
hours at 450 °C, and further, the thickness of intermetallic
band increased as the annealing temperature and time were
increased. Abbasi et al. [29] observed the intermetallic phase
in Al-Cu interface when it was annealed at 250 °C for 50 h.
Moreover, a visibly thick layer (i.e., above 5.0 μm) was ob-
served when the annealing was elapsed for about 400 h. This
means the heat treatment conditions required for the
formation and growth of intermetallic in the bonded
laminates are associated with the type of bonded metals.
In fact, the intermetallic phase forms due to the diffu-
sion of atoms between the laminates, which, in turn,
depends on their physical properties. For instance, dif-
fusion occurs in the Al-steel sheet even when heated at
low temperatures for short time (say 450 °C) [12]. On
the other hand, for the current Cu-steel laminates,
higher temperature (about 900 °C) is required in order
for the atoms of Cu to rapidly diffuse into steel for
forming an intermetallic layer [27] because Cu has
higher melting point than Al (1080 vs. 685 °C).
The formation of intermetallic layer has been report-
ed to adversely affect the bond strength and tensile
properties of the laminated sheets [12, 30]. However,
intermetallic with thin layer does not affect these prop-
erties; it happens only when the thickness of intermetal-
lic layer is above 5.0 μm [30]. In the current study, the
layer thickness does not surpass this threshold value.
Therefore, it is possible to say that the development of
intermetallic phase in the current steel-Cu composite
(after annealing) may not seriously affect the properties.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

3.2 Heating effect on residual stresses
Figure 2a is the photograph of a sample annealed for 750 °C
and 3 h. This is to notice that the Cu sheet during annealing
detached from the steel sheet representing the absence of any
bonding between the laminates. In the previous study [26],
this was thought to be an outgrowth of intensive drop in the
residual stresses. However, no investigation was performed to
verify this idea.
To examine if the delamination occurred due to drop in the
residual stresses, their magnitude was measured in three se-
lected samples, i.e., non-annealed (0 °C) and annealed at
550 °C and 700 °C. The results are presented in Fig. 2b. As
observable from the figure, the magnitude of residual stresses
reduce from about −40.0 to −1.0 MPa as the annealing tem-
perature increases from 0 to 700 °C. This finding clearly
proves that the delamination took place due to complete relief
of laminates from rolling stresses. This is to mention that the
(a)
Delaminaon
(b) Depth (µm)
0 the early work [26], at elevated temperatures are due to
0 100 200 300 400
delamination was observed even when annealing was carried
out for shorter duration (i.e., 1 h) at 750 °C. These results
explain why the experimental material can at most be
annealed to about 700 °C.
3.3 Relationship between residual stresses and mechanical
properties
In the previous study [26], the influence of annealing temper-
ature on the mechanical properties (tensile properties and
bond force) was quantified. Among the tensile properties,
the ductility was shown to increase while the tensile strength
was observed to decrease with the increasing of temperature.
The influence of temperature on the overall flow behavior of
selected steel-Cu composite sheet metal samples is presented
in Fig. 3. As can be seen, for equal amount of deformation, the
flow stress reduces in both of the rolling (RD) and transverse
(TD) direction as the annealing temperature increases, espe-
cially at the temperature of 450 °C and above. The maximum
flow stress, however, remains almost unchanged specifically
after 450 °C. In fact, the ability of material to endure strain
without fracturing increases with annealing temperature, and
as a result, the flow stress correspondingly increases due to
strain hardening thus attaining the same value experienced by
the material annealed at 450 °C. From this finding, it can be
inferred that the steel-Cu composite may yield components
with not only high formability but also with high toughness.
Figure 4 shows relationships between the magnitude of
residual stresses and various composite sheet properties.
This is to notice that both of the ductility (i.e., area reduction)
and hardening exponent increase, and the tensile strength de-
creases as the magnitude of residual stresses decreases at ele-
vated temperatures. Likewise, the bond force at the laminate
interface reduces. This clarifies that the increase in the ductil-
ity and reduction in the strength and bond force, reported in
500

-9 350
Residual stress (MPa)

300
0°C- RD
-18 250 0°C- TD
0°C
Stress (MPa)

450°C- RD
550°C 200 450°C- TD
700°C 700°C- RD
-27 150 700°C- TD

100
-36 50

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
-45 Strain
Fig. 2 a Photograph of sheet with Cu delaminated when annealed at Fig. 3 Flow curves of steel-Cu composite sheet metal at various
750 °C [26]. b Profiles of residual stresses for selected samples annealing temperatures
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Temperature (oC) 3.4 Comparison between spifability and stampability

700 525 350 175 0
308 60
In the previous study [26], a small tool with the radius of
306
50 2.5 mm was employed to evaluate the formability of compos-
304
Tensile strength (MPa)

ite sheet in SPIF (i.e., spifability). To observe, how a larger

Area reduction (%)

302 40 tool affects the spifability of composite sheet, tests employing
a tool of radius of 10 mm were also conducted. This was also
300
30 necessary for the reason of comparing formability between
Tensile strength 298 SPIF and stamping to see how and by what extent a variation
Area reduction
296 20 in the size of tool influences the results. For the two tool sizes
294 (i.e., with radii of 2.5 and 10 mm), the formability-temperature
10 relationship is shown in Fig. 5. The spifability for either of the
292 tool radius gradually increases as the temperature increases
290 0 from 450 to 650 °C. For the same range of temperature, the
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 spifability increases from 1.16 to 1.58 for the tool radius of
Residual stress (MPa) 2.5 mm and 1.05 to 1.33 for the tool radius of 10 mm which in
percentage approximates to 36.0 and 27.0 % for the respective
tools. This reveals that the nature of influence of annealing is
350 0.24 independent of tool size; however, the percentage increase in

300 0.22

0.2
Hardening exponent

250
Bond force (N)

Bond force
Hardening exponent 0.18
200
0.16
150
0.14
100 0.12

50 0.1
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 SPIF sample
Residual stress (MPa)

Fig. 4 Correlations of residual stresses with various properties of 1.7

1hr-2.5R
composite sheet metal
3hr-2.5R
1.6 5hr-2.5R
Major strain around fracture

7hr-2.5R
corresponding decrease in the magnitude of compressive 1.5 1hr-10R
stresses in the bonded laminates of composite sheet. 3hr-10R
According to the literature [12, 29], the ductility of 1.4 5hr-10R
bonded sheet(s) falls with the increasing of annealing 7hr-10R
temperature. On the contrary, the ductility in the current 1.3
case increases as clear from Fig. 4 and reported in [26].
This discrepancy can be attributed to a fact that the 1.2
interface of the present steel-Cu laminates, in contrast
to the previous studies, does not experience any sub- 1.1
stantial change in the microstructure during annealing, As-received = 1.05; 1.15
as discussed earlier. Therefore, it is possible to say that 1 Max Avg dev = ±1.8%
the aforementioned variations in the tensile properties 400 475 550 625 700
and bond force are not due to formation of intermetal- Temperature (°C)
lic; rather, they are mainly the outcome of reduction in Fig. 5 Spifability of steel-Cu composite sheet metal at varying annealing
the magnitude of residual stresses and strain hardening temperature: Inset shows a formability sample and the definition of
during annealing. formability in SPIF
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
the formability that one can score by increasing temperature
over a certain given range is higher for the small tool.
Considering the highest temperature of 700 °C, the formabil-
ity offered by the small tool is about 21 % greater than that
offered by the large tool. This is in agreement with the litera-
ture on the monolithic sheet [19, 25], revealing that the effect
of using small tool on the composite sheet does not signifi-
cantly differ from its effect on the monolithic sheet.
Figure 6 depicts the influence of variation in the annealing
temperature on the stampability. As can be noticed, the plane
strain stampability depicts a similar trend as observed for the
spifability. There is a sharp rise in the stampability as the
temperature increases from 650 to 700 °C. The total increase
in the stampability as a result of 250 °C rise in the temperature
amounts to be 210.0 %, which is rather higher than 36.0 %
recorded for the spifability. This reveals that annealing is more
influential on the stampability than on the spifability of the
steel-Cu composite sheet. As a matter of fact, annealing
Stamped sample
0.14
1hr
3hr
0.12 5hr
Major strain around fracture
7hr
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
As-received = 0.0315
Max Avg dev = ±2.7%
0.02
400 475 550
Temperature (°C)
Fig. 6 Stampability of steel-Cu composite sheet metal at varying
annealing temperature: Inset shows a stamping sample and the
definition of stampability
increases the hardening exponent (0.15 to 0.22 in this study)
(or ductility) by decreasing the effect of work hardening. As a
result, the tendency of material to experience strain localiza-
tion during stamping (a global deformation process) reduces
and the tendency of material to undergo uniform straining
increases thus enhancing the formability [27]. On the other
hand, SPIF is a forming process in which deformation is main-
ly constricted in the localized area. Due to this reason, anneal-
ing does not affect spifability as much as it does stampability.
The conventional formability (i.e., stampability) of com-
posite sheets, contrary to the finding of current work, has been
reported to decrease due to increase in the formation of inter-
metallics when annealed over elevated temperatures [12, 30].
A very thin layer (with thickness below threshold value of
5 μm) of intermetallic is observed in this study which follows
that the increase in the formability in both of SPIF and
stamping occurs due to corresponding reduction in the mag-
nitude of residual stresses (or strain hardening) or increase in
the ductility.
Figure 7 presents a comparison between the spifability and
stampability. As can be seen, the formability in SPIF (i.e.,
spifability) regardless of the tool size and annealing tempera-
ture is higher than the formability in stamping (i.e.,
stampability). This is to notice that the spifability is even
higher than the fracture forming limit (FFL) of stamping,
shown as an inset for selected samples: compare FL-SPIF with
FFL. This is in agreement with the previous finding
established for the monolithic sheets that SPIF offers higher
formability than conventional pressing process does [16, 19],
and further, this also applies to the aggregate of sheets (or
bonded laminates). However, as depicted in Fig. 8, the
increment in the formability offered by SPIF relative to
stampability (i.e., 100× [spifability-stampability/
stampability]) depends on the annealing condition of
composite sheet. The increment value decreases as the
annealing temperature increases (e.g., for tool radius of
10 mm, 3233.0 to 923.0 % as temperature increases
from 0 to 700 °C), which can be reasoned to an earlier
found fact that the influence of annealing is higher on
stampability than on spifability.
Figure 9 portrays a correlation between the composite sheet
formability (i.e., strain around fracture) and normalized punch
size (i.e., R/To where R is the tool/punch radius and To is the
sheet thickness). As can be noticed, the formability in SPIF
decreases with an increase in the normalized radius. In
addition, it tends to approach the formability in
stamping if the tool size is further increased because
doing so will extend the deformation zone consequently
625 700 transforming the nature of deformation from local
(SPIF) to global (stamping). This means that, as in the
SPIF of monolithic sheets [16], localized deformation
due to small tool(s) plays important role in improving
the spifability of bonded laminates.
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

1.8 FL-SPIF (non-annealed) 2.5R 1.8

Fracture-SPIF (non-annealed) 2.5R Stampability
1.6 FL-SPIF (700C) 2.5R 1.6 10 R- Spifability

Major strain around fracture

Fracture-SPIF (700C) 2.5R 2.5 R- Spifability
1.4 1.4
FL-SPIF (non-annealed) 10R
1.2 Fracture-SPIF (non-annealed) 10R 1.2
Major strain

1 FL-SPIF (700C) 10R

1
Fracture-SPIF (700C) 10R
0.8 FL-Stamp (non-annealed) 0.8
0.6 FFL-Stamp (non-annealed)
FL-Stamp (700C) 0.6
0.4 FFL-Stamp (700C) 0.4
0.2
FLD 0.2
0
-0.025 0 0.025 0.05 0.075 0.1 0
Minor strain

1.8 Temperature (°C)

Stampability
1.6 10 R- Spifability
Major strain around fracture

1.4 2.5 R- Spifability 4000

2.5R
1.2 3500 10R
Spifability Vs stampablity (%)

1
3000
0.8
2500
0.6
0.4 2000
0.2 1500
0
1000

Temperature (°C) 500

Fig. 7 Comparison between the spifability and stampability: Inset is the 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
forming limit diagram (FLD) for both of SPIF and stamping Temperature (°C)
Fig. 8 Effect of annealing temperature on the formability increase
4 Discussion offered by SPIF

Figure 10 presents the thickness profiles of selected parts pro-

duced through SPIF and stamping processes. As observable
from the figure, the thickness of the SPIFed part(s) is lower
than that of the stamped part, despite the fact that plane strain
stretching prevailed during forming of both types of the parts.
This endorses the established fact that SPIF can deform the
materials to a larger extent and further reveals that this ability
of SPIF is not limited to monolithic sheet(s) but also equally
valid to composite sheet metal. In literature [19], this ability is
attributed to minor shear and local deformation involved in
SPIF [19].
This is worth noticing from Fig. 10 that there is a sudden
drop in the wall thickness (from depth of 24 mm to onwards)
in the stamped part, which indicates the onset of necking prior
to sheet fracturing [31, 32]. On the other hand, there is no such
a visible drop in the thickness in the SPIFed parts. This finding
follows that the failure mechanism in SPIF of composite sheet
is dominated by fracture with suppression of necking, in con-
sistent with that of the monolithic sheets reported in the liter-
ature [32, 33] where it is shown that the failure mechanism
will be suppression with necking if the tool size is small (say
≤10 mm). However, it is to clarify that the failure mechanism
also depends on the type of material besides tool size [31].
Therefore, yet, there is no complete consensus among the
researchers in this regard.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

1.8 observed which indicate that the sheet fracture in either of

Stamping the forming processes was ductile. However, the fractured
1.6 SPIF surface in SPIF is rougher than that in stamping which, in
Major strain around fracture

1.4
1.2
1 coalescence in the fractographs of stamped samples, a
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 15 30 45
R/To
Fig. 9 Normalized radius versus the formability of steel-Cu composite
sheet metal
Figure 11a shows the optical micrographs of selected
SPIFed parts. This is to see from the shown sections that there
is no de-bonding of laminates which means that the composite
sheet formed without any delamination till fracture. Further,
the failure occurred due to fracture, as takes place in the mono-
lithic sheet metals. The optical micrographs of fractured sec-
tions in stamping are shown in Fig. 11b. Contrary to SPIF,
separation of laminates (encircled) can be detected which fol-
lows that the failure might had influenced by delamination.
The absence of delamination in SPIF, in contrast to stamping,
may be attributed to localized deformation and high hydro-
static stress beneath the forming tool [22–25].
Figure 12 presents the fractographs for the selected samples
of SPIF and stamping. Dimples in both the cases can be
agreement with the result presented before, dictates that the
formability in SPIF must be higher than that in stamping. This
is to notice that there is a clear evidence of voids and their
decaying process that promotes fracture and reduces formabil-
ity. On the other hand, there are very few voids and there is no
voids joining in the SPIFed samples, which means that void
formation does not have any significant influence on fractur-
ing in SPIF. This finding regarding voids provides another
explanation why SPIF offers greater formability than
stamping. The discrepancy between the void formation in
the two forming processes may be attributed to hydrostatic
60
stress which is believed to be higher in SPIF than in stamping
[33]. However, further investigations are required to quantify
the exact quantity of damage and hydrostatic stress for the
current material which is out of the scope of this study and
is left as a future work.
In the literature [16, 19, 34], it has been reported that SPIF
can enhance the formability of sheet metals in comparison to
stamping. For monolithic sheets, using 4-mm tool radius and
0.2-mm step size, the range of enhancement has been reported
to be 181.0 to 268.0 % (brass to Al 20124-T4) [34]. On the
other hand, the minimum formability increase (or enhance-
ment) due to SPIF has been found to be 923 % (despite larger
tool was employed herein study than the one used in [34]), for
the current steel-Cu composite sheet which is a way greater
than that reported for the monolithic sheets in the literature
[34]. Table 1 lists the plane strain formability of various mono-
lithic sheets, both in stamping and SPIF. This is to see that the
monolithic sheets exhibit fairly good stampability compara-
tive to spifability. On the other hand, the current steel-Cu sheet
exhibits very low stampability relative to spifability. This is

Fig. 10 Thickness distribution in 1

SPIF and stamping of composite Sine law
sheet metal 0.9 SPIF (Non-annealed)- R2.5
0.8 SPIF (700°C)- R2.5
SPIF (700°C)- R10
0.7
Thickness (mm)

Stamping (700°C)
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0 10 20 30 40 50
Depth of part (mm)

(a)
As received
(b)
As received
Fig. 11 a Optical micrographs of thickness sections: a SPIF and b stamping: Encircled regions show delamination
most probably due to a fact that the stampability is limited by
delamination as discussed earlier and shown in Fig. 11, while
delamination is not observed in SPIF. This explains why SPIF
shows higher formability improvement in composite sheet
than it does for the monolithic sheet.
Moreover, SPIF has been reported to extend the formability
of monolithic sheets till the conventional fracture forming
limit (FFL) [30, 32]. SPIF in the current work, as mentioned
earlier, deforms the material well above the FFL (750.0 to
810.0 %). This means that the performance of SPIF in terms
of formability is better in case of composite sheet than in case
of monolithic sheet. Also, comparing the current finding with
[31, 32], the formability enhancement by SPIF is material
dependent.
Fig. 12 Fractographs of SPIF SPIF
and stamped samples produced
from sheet annealed at 700 °C
Rough surface
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Annealed at
700 oC
Annealed at
700 oC
Summarizing the results, the laminates of roll-bonded com-
posite sheet (steel-Cu) remain intact due to compressive resid-
ual stresses imposed by cold working in the rolling process.
These stresses thus control the bond force between the bonded
laminates and other mechanical characteristics like ductility
and flow stress. The magnitude of these stresses drops to very
low value (i.e., −1.0 MPa) when the sheet is annealed to high
temperatures (say 700 °C) consequently causing de-bonding
of the joined laminates. Regarding the effect of raising anneal-
ing temperature on the interfacial microstructure, the interme-
tallic layer is formed. However, being thin, it does not pose
any significant influence on the mechanical properties and
formability of current material; rather, the magnitude of resid-
ual stresses is an authoritative parameter in this regard.
Stamping
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Table 1 Percent increase in the formability caused by SPIF relative to
conventional stamping
Material SPIF Stamping % Increase
Al-3003 [29] 1.06 0.35 202
Al-2024-T4 [29] 0.81 0.22 268
Steel [29] 1.07 0.33 224
Ti pure [29] 0.99 0.36 175
Brass [29] 1.04 0.37 181
Cu/steel [current] (minimum) 1.33 0.13 923
Moreover, SPIF offers significantly higher formability (at
least 923 %) than stamping, because failure in the latter pro-
cess is promoted by void coalescence and delamination while
these failure mechanisms do not prevail in the former process.
5 Conclusions
The present study was undertaken in order to draw a compar-
ison between the formability of roll-bonded steel-Cu compos-
ite sheet metal in incremental forming and stamping and to
explain the reasons of observations made in the author’s pre-
vious work [26]. The following are the important findings:
1. The magnitude of the residual stresses in the roll-bonded
steel-Cu sheet rapidly decreases from about −40.0 to
−1.0 MPa as the annealing temperature increases from 0
to 700 °C. Further increase in the temperature causes
drastic drop in the stresses leading to detachment of the
laminates. This reveals that the compressive stresses are
mandatory to keep the roll-bonded laminates intact.
2. The formation of intermetallic layer (Cu80Fe20) between
the laminates is detected due to annealing. However, its
growth rate with an increase in the annealing temperature
is found to be very low. The maximum thickness of the
layer is measured to be less than 5 μm (at 700 °C temper-
ature), a minimum threshold value necessary for affecting
the properties of a laminated sheet metal. This rectifies a
previous finding that intermetallic does not form in the
roll-bonded steel-Cu composite sheet [26].
3. The residual stress-property correlation given in this study
shows that the bond force decreases as the magnitude of
residual stress decreases when the composite sheet is heat-
ed over elevated temperatures. The literature [12, 20], on
the other hand, claims the formation of intermetallic layer
as a cause of reduction in the bond force between the
composite laminates. In the current study, however, the
intermetallic thickness remains below the threshold value
of 5 μm as said above. This reveals that the bond force
reduction in the current case is because of reduction in the
compressive stresses. Also, the bond force could drop due
to annealing even if the intermetallic phase(s) does not
develop in the bonded laminates
4. The formability of composite sheet, both in SPIF and
stamping, increases as the annealing temperature is in-
creased. The annealing is more influential on the stamping
formability than SPIF formability (i.e., 210.0 vs. 36.0 %
compared to as-received sheet).
5. The SPIF process exhibits higher formability of the com-
posite sheet than the stamping process does. However, the
increase in the formability offered by SPIF decreases
(e.g., from 3233 to 923 % for tool radius of 10 mm) with
the increasing of annealing temperature. Yet, the mini-
mum increase (i.e., 923 %) in the composite sheet form-
ability offered by SPIF is found to be much greater than
that (181 to 268 %) reported in the literature for the mono-
lithic sheets [19, 35]. This follows that SPIF has ability to
form the composite sheet to outstanding extent and can be
successfully employed as a promising alterative of
stamping.
6. According to the microscopic examinations, considerable
formation of voids/their coalescence and traces of delam-
ination are the main factors that promote sheet fracturing
in stamping. On the other hand, low number of voids and
the absence of voids coalescence and delamination are the
factors that delay sheet fracturing in SPIF. These, from
microscopic viewpoint, are the possible reasons for high
formability of composite sheet in SPIF. However, further
work is required in this direction.
6 Future work
In order to deepen the knowledge, hydrostatic stress specifi-
cally at the laminate interface will be compared through finite
element analyses. Moreover, the damage needs to be quanti-
fied in the SPIF and stamping processes as to know the exact
quantity.
Compliance with ethical standards
Funding This work was funded by DSR, King Abdulaziz University,
Jeddah, under grant no. 12-135-35-RG.
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