Development of a visco-plastic constitutive modeling for thixoforming of AA6061 in semi-solid state

A visco-plastic constitutive equation for thixoforming is proposed that takes into account the effect of the liquid fraction along with other factors i.e. the stress/strain relationship, strain rate and temperature. The incorporation of liquid fraction allows the model to be applied to any type of semi-solid aluminum alloys, which is a significant improvement over the previous empirical models. Based on the thixotropic compression tests for the semi-solid AA6061 aluminum alloy, this visco-plastic constitutive model is validated by means of simulation on the ABAQUS platform.