One of the most important challenges for the today's automotive industry is the minimization of fuel consumption. Since there is a strong correlation between car weight and consumption, the reduction of the car body mass represents a possibility to achieve improvements. In addition to higher strength steels, magnesium, plastics and material compounds, the utilization of aluminium sheets offer the chance to reduce the entire car weight and influence the fuel consumption. However, the use of aluminium alloys in car manufacture is limited to few applications. One of the main reason for the refusing behaviour of the car manufacturers is the missing of user guidelines concerning the layout of the forming process as well as design of part and forming tools. The following paper will describe selected possibilities to increase the forming window of aluminium. This means that the distance between the occurrence of wrinkles and cracks can be increased and consequently, the manufacturing safety in the field of aluminum forming can be improved.
