Formability of sandwich sheet materials in plane strain compression and rolling

Abstract

The stress states developed during room temperature, plane strain compression modes of deformation of stainless steel clad aluminum and aluminum clad strainless steel sheets have been investigated in order to gain insight into the formability of bonded ductile sandwich sheet materials in primary metalworking processes. Assuming uniform, isostrain deformation in the component layers, sandwich compression stress-strain curves were predicted to be rule of mixtures averages of component compression stress-strain curves. These predictions showed good agreement with experimental data when friction and in-homogeneous deformation were taken into account. Since the through-thickness applied pressure can be assumed to be the same in both components of thin sandwich sheet materials, in-plane stresses which are tensile in the harder component and compressive in the softer component of a clad sheet are developed in order to satisfy the yield conditions. The nature of these in-plane stresses was confirmed by measurements of residual stress distributions in rolled clad sheet specimens, and it was shown how the tensile stress in the harder component may lead to unstable flow and failure of this component during forming. The observed failures were similar in both plane-strain indentation and rolling tests. Although the initiation of instability in symmetric clad sheet metals appears to be independent of the arrangement of the component layers, the process of final localization leading to fracture was observed to depend heavily on the layer arrangement.