Sheet metal forming processes are widely used in industry. Nevertheless, the use of these processes is limited by the formability of the considered material, in particular in the case of the aluminium alloys. To improve the formability, warm forming processes can be considered. The objective of this work is to study by means of both experimental and numerical approaches, the effects of temperature and strain rate on the formability of AA5086 aluminium alloy sheets and to propose a modeling suitable to predict these effects. Experimental tests have been carried out on this material by means of the Marciniak stamping experimental device. Forming limit curves (FLCs) have been established on a temperature range going from ambient temperature to 200°C and on a strain rate range going from quasi-static up to 2s-1. A positive effect of the temperature and a negative effect of the strain rate on the formability limits were highlighted. To date, very few predictive models of the FLCs taking into account temperature and strain rate effects are proposed in the literature. In this work, in order to predict the experimental temperature and strain rate sensitivities, a predictive model based on the finite element simulation of the Marciniak and Kuczynski (M-K) geometrical model is proposed. The limit strains obtained with this model are very sensitive to the description of the thermo-viscoplastic behaviour modeling and to the calibration of the initial geometrical imperfection controlling the onset of the necking. Thanks to tensile tests carried out for the same operating conditions that those of Marciniak forming tests, several types (power law, saturation and mixed) of hardening laws have been identified. These hardening laws have been implemented in theFE M-K model to obtain numerical limit strains. Very different formability limits have been observed for a given value of the geometrical defect. Several strategies for the calibration of this initial imperfection size have been tested. The use of the experimental point of the FLC0 corresponding to plane strain condition allows a good calibration of the initial imperfection value. This calibration procedure was carried out for all hardening laws. It is shown that the power law type models such as Ludwick law are more efficient while saturation laws such as Voce law are unable to predict the material formability for some conditions. Finally, it is shown that a constant value of the geometrical defect cannot be used to the whole operating conditions studied even if FE M-K model is shown to be efficient to represent the temperature effect rather than strain rate one.
