Prediction of bending springback of the medium-Mn steel considering elastic modulus attenuation

Abstract

The improvement of lightweight and safety is the development requirement of automobile parts. Therefore, the demand of thin-walled parts with ultra-high strength is more urgent. However, with the increase of strength, the springback phenomenon of parts is particularly serious, which greatly affects the forming quality of parts. Generally, the springback of automobile parts should be controlled within 5%. Thus, the accurate simulation and prediction of springback can provide important support for the manufacture of ultra-high strength automobile thin-walled parts. In this paper, the bending springback of the medium-Mn steel, as one of the third-generation automobile steels, was studied based on experiment and simulation under different conditions. Tensile tests were carried out to evaluate comprehensive mechanical properties with high strength and high plasticity. Cyclic loading-unloading tests were conducted to analyze the changing rules of unloading elastic modulus and inelastic recovery with strain. The correlation model between unloading elastic modulus and true plastic strain was further established and the model parameters were obtained. Furthermore, V-shaped bending tests were carried out under different conditions to analyze the effects of rolling direction, bending angle, and punch fillet radius on springback. The effect of rolling direction on springback angle is negligible. The bending angle has a positive effect on springback angle, while the punch fillet radius has a negative effect. Finally, the material model with constant and variable elastic moduli were developed by using user-defined material subroutines for the medium-Mn steel. V-shaped bending tests under constant and variable elastic moduli were simulated and compared with the experimental result. The simulated result with variable elastic modulus was closer to the experimental one, which proves the importance of considering the change of unloading elastic modulus in the numerical simulation of medium-Mn steel. The research result of this paper is helpful to enhance the simulation accuracy of springback of medium-Mn steel part and promote its industrial application.