Rate-dependent ductile fracture under plane strain tension: experiments and simulations

Abstract

Among all other stress states achievable under plane stress conditions, the lowest ductility is consistently observed for plane strain tension. For static loading conditions, V-bending of small sheet coupons is the most reliable way of characterising the strain to fracture for plane strain tension. Different from conventional notched tension specimens, necking is suppressed during V-bending which results in a remarkably constant stress state all the way until fracture initiation. The present DYMAT talk is concerned with the extension of the V-bending technique from low to high strain rate experiments. A new technique is designed with the help of finite element simulations. It makes use of modified Nakazima specimens that are subjected to V-bending. Irrespective of the loading velocity, plane strain tension conditions are maintained throughout the entire loading history up to fracture initiation. Experiments are performed on specimens extracted from aluminum 2024-T3 and dual phase DP450 steel sheets. The experimental program includes quasi static loading conditions which are achieved on a universal testing machine. In addition, high strain rate experiments are performed using a specially-designed drop tower system. In all experiments, images are acquired with two cameras to determine the surface strain history through stereo Digital Image Correlation (DIC). The experimental observations are discussed in detail and also compared with the numerical simulations to validate the proposed experimental technique