Comparison of experimental and theoretical results for the hydrostatic bulging of circular sheets

Abstract

Incremental and total-strain theories have recently been used by the authors to obtain numerical solutions for the hydrostatic bulging of circular diaphragms. These solutions have incorporated the effects of anisotropy in the direction of the thickness of the sheet. This investigation was conducted to obtain test data on aluminum-killed steel sheets which contain the above mentioned anisotropy and to compare these data with the predictions of the incremental and total-strain theories solutions. The results show that the incremental theory is in better agreement with test data than the total-strain theory. Strain-path data for several volume elements shows that each volume element follows an approximately proportional strain path. However, the strain paths obtained from the total-strain theory are in gross disagreement with the data.