Verification of a Thermoviscoplastic Constitutive Relation for Brass Material Using Taylor's Test

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology to define and verify the dynamic behavior of materials based on Taylor's test. A brass alloy with a microstructure composed mainly of two pure metals that have two different crystal structures, copper (face-centered cubic (fcc)) and zinc (hexagonal closed-packed (hcp)), is used in this study. A combined approach of different principal mechanisms controlled by the emergence and evolution of mobile dislocations as well as the long-range intersections between forest dislocations is, therefore, adopted to develop accurate definition for its flow stress. The constitutive relation is verified against experimental results conducted at low and high strain rates and temperatures using compression screw machine and split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB), respectively. The present model predicted results that compare well with experiments and was capable of simulating the low strain rate sensitivity that was observed during the several static and dynamic tests. The verified constitutive relations are further integrated and implemented in a commercial finite element (FE) code for three-dimensional (3D) Taylor's test simulations. A Taylor's test enables the definition of only one point on the stress–strain curve for a given strain rate using the initial and final geometry of the specimen after impact into a rigid surface. Thus, it is necessary to perform several tests with different geometries to define the complete material behavior under dynamic loadings. The advantage of using strain rate independent brass in this study is the possibility to rebuild the complete process of strain hardening during Taylor's tests by using the same specimen geometry. Experimental results using the Taylor test technique at a range of velocity impacts between 70 m/s and 200 m/s are utilized in this study to validate the constitutive model of predicting the dynamic behavior of brass at extreme conditions.