Effect of Equivalent Stress-Strain Relation and Differential Hardening on Accuracy of Forming Limit Analyses

Abstract

Multiaxial tube expansion tests (MTETs) were performed to measure the multiaxial plastic deformation behavior of a cold rolled interstitial-free (IF) steel sheet for a range of strain from initial yield to fracture. The testing machine is capable of applying arbitrary principal stress or strain paths to tubular specimens using an electrical, closed-loop servo-control system for an axial force and an internal pressure. Tubular specimens with an inner diameter of 44.6 mm were fabricated from a cold rolled IF steel sheet with a thickness of 0.7 mm by roller bending and laser welding. Many linear stress paths in the first quadrant of stress space were applied to the tubular specimens to measure the forming limit strains and forming limit stresses of the as-received sheet sample, in addition to the contours of plastic work and the directions of the plastic strain rates. It was found that the shapes of the measured work contours changed with increasing plastic work. The observed differential hardening behavior was approximated by changing the material parameters and the exponent of the Yld2000-2d yield function (Barlat et al, 2003) as functions of the reference plastic strain. The hydraulic bulge tests were also conducted to measure the forming limit strain and forming limit stress for equibiaxial tension and to determine the equivalent stress-equivalent plastic strain relation for a larger strain range. The forming limit curve and forming limit stress curve were calculated using the Marciniak-Kuczyński-type approach. The calculated results were in fair agreement with the measurement.