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In this study, multilayer carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic sheets with various pre-impregnated thicknesses were developed. Specimens were fabricated by the hand lay-up process from standard and thin-ply unidirectional carbon fiber/epoxy resin prepreg sheets, which were also cured in an autoclave. Tensile tests from room temperature to 120°C and interlaminar shear strength tests at room temperature were first conducted to investigate the mechanical behavior of the laminated carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic sheets. Furthermore, with a view to increase the formability, in this study, a state-of-theart drawing process for laminated carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic sheets at an elevated temperature was investigated, and the drawing ratio was also determined for the case of elliptical cup drawing. To achieve this, the relation between the punch load and stroke, and the distribution of thickness were determined by measurement. To clarify the forming behavior in this case, evaluation of the effect of increasing the number of drawing steps was performed to investigate the deformation history. The microstructures showed reduced delamination with increasing radius of the punch. The experimental results obtained in this study are expected to help designers perform the press forming of multilayer carbon fiber/epoxy resin sheets.

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Due to its lightweight and high specific strength, aluminum-based metal matrix composites have drawn much attention from the forging industry for manufacturing structural components. In the present study, the forging formability of the aluminum-based metal matrix composites A6061/Al 2 O 3 was investigated with both the experimental approaches and the finite element analysis. The compression tests were conducted to obtain the stress-strain curves for the A6061/Al 2 O 3 composites at elevated temperatures ranging from the room temperature to 500°C under various strain rates of 0.05s -1 , 0.5s -1 and 5s -1 , respectively. The forging of a structural part with characteristic geometry features, including a circular cup at the top and a boss at the bottom, was also performed in the present study to investigate the forging formability of the A6061/Al 2 O 3 metal-matrix composites. The consistency between the experimental data and the finite element simulation results confirms the validity of the finite element analysis on the forging formability of the A6061/Al 2 O 3 metal-matrix composite and the die design proposed in the present study.