ISE Welcomes Fadi Abu-Farha

Posted: September 15, 2016

Integrated Approach for the Sustainable Manufacturing of Lightweight Alloys for the Transportation Sector

Seminar by Fadi Abu-Farha

Assistant Professor – Automotive Engineering

Clemson University – International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR)

Speaker Biography:

FADI Abu-Farha as an Assistant Professor of Automotive Engineering at Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR). Fadi’s prime area of research is “Lightweight Materials and their Manufacturing”; his research activities have been targeting greater utilization of lightweight materials in the transportation sector using cost-effective and energy-efficient manufacturing techniques. Particular topics of interest include: advanced material testing aided by digital image correlation (DIC) and optical metrology, sheet metal forming (characterization, constitutive modeling and FE simulations), hot stamping (HB-CD), adhesive bonding and hybrid-material joining, accumulative roll bonding and shear rolling.

Fadi received several best poster/paper/presentation awards at several events including NAMRI/SME, SAE World Congress and TMS. Fadi is a recipient of the NSF-CAREER Award, the USCAR Team Award, the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, the SAE Ralph Teetor Award, and the TMS Light Metals Division Award.

Abstract:

With the ever-growing pressure to produce “cleaner” vehicles, lightweighting is still considered one of the most effective means of reducing fuel consumption levels in the transportation sector. The prime material candidates (such as AHSSs, aluminium and magnesium alloys) have technical “deformation & failure” issues that present major manufacturing hurdles, making it harder to implement these materials on a larger scale. To overcome this, an integrated “Mechanics-Processing-Manufacturing” approach is followed, in which we couple: (i) advanced characterization to understand and model complex material behavior, (ii) processing to alter material behavior in a favorable way, and (iii) development of new manufacturing techniques that enable forming lightweight materials. In this seminar, I present three examples of research activities in which this integration is demonstrated, in pursuit of effective, economic and sustainable lightweighting solutions. The seminar will cover: Springback prediction of advanced steels, hot blank–cold die (HB-CD) stamping of aluminium alloy sheets, and friction stir back extrusion (FSBE) of magnesium alloy tubes.