Original Article Drawing potential of fiber metal laminates in hydromechanical forming: A numerical and experimental study Alireza Saadatfard 1 , Mahdi Gerdooei 1 and Abdolhossein Jalali Aghchai 2 Abstract It is known that fiber metal laminates as one of hybrid materials with thin metal sheets and fiber/resin layers have limited formability in conventional forming methods. This paper presents an experimental and numerical study for drawability of glass fiber- reinforced aluminum laminates under hydromechanical drawing technique. Fiber metal laminates comprised of a layer of woven glass fiber-reinforced prepreg, sand- wiched between two layers of aluminum alloy. In order to produce fiber metal laminates, the laminates were subjected to a sufficient squeezing pressure under a controlled heating time and temperature by using a hydraulic hot press. A hydrome- chanical tooling equipped with blank-holder force and fluid pressure control system was used to form the initial circular fiber metal laminate blank. Finally, the effect of param- eters such as pre-bulging pressure, final chamber pressure, and drawing ratio on pro- cess variables was evaluated. Also, the characteristic curve of hydromechanical drawing of fiber metal laminate i.e. chamber pressure in terms of drawing ratio was achieved by means of experimental tests and numerical simulations. The results showed that the maximum drawing ratio of defect-free fiber metal laminates, namely without any tear- ing, wrinkling, and delamination was obtained at pre-bulging and chamber pressure of 35 and 80 bar, respectively. 1 Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Semnan, Iran 2 K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran Corresponding author: Mahdi Gerdooei, Faculty of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Semnan 3619995161, Iran. Email: gerdooei@shahroodut.ac.ir Journal of Sandwich Structures & Materials 0(0) 1–18 ! The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1099636218785208 journals.sagepub.com/home/jsm