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Mechanics of Materials 40 (2008) 586593 www.elsevier.com/locate/mechmat

A new method for acquiring true stressstrain curves over a large range of strains using a tensile test and nite element method
ManSoo Joun a,b,*, Jea Gun Eom c, Min Cheol Lee a
a

School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Gyeongsang National University, 900 Gajwa-dong, Jinju-City, GyeongNam 660-701, Republic of Korea b Research Center for Aircraft Parts Technology, Gyeongsang National University, Republic of Korea c Technology Innovation Center, Gyeongsang National University, Republic of Korea Received 1 May 2007

Abstract This paper presents a method for acquiring true stressstrain curves over large range of strains using engineering stress strain curves obtained from a tensile test coupled with a nite element analysis. The results from the tensile test are analyzed using a rigid-plastic nite element method combined with a perfect analysis model for a simple bar to provide the deformation information. The reference true stressstrain curve, which predicts the necking point exactly, is modied iteratively to minimize the dierence in the tensile force between the tensile test and the analyzed results. The validity of the approach is veried by comparing tensile test results with nite element solutions obtained using a modied true stress strain curve. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Flow stress; Large strain; Stressstrain curve; Tensile test

1. Introduction Metal-forming simulation techniques have become generalized in industry. As a result, material properties, including the true stressstrain curves, are indispensable for process design engineers
* Corresponding author. Address: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Gyeongsang National University, 900 Gajwa-dong, Jinju-City, GyeongNam 660-701, Republic of Korea. Tel./fax: +82 55 751 5316. E-mail address: msjoun@gsnu.ac.kr (M. Joun).

because the accuracy of a simulation depends mainly on that of the material properties used. This is especially true for true stressstrain curves. A true stressstrain curve is aected by the manufacturing history, metallurgical treatments, and chemical composition of the material. Therefore, metal-forming simulation engineers require true stressstrain curves that reect the special conditions of their materials. However, it is dicult to obtain the material properties from experiments and very limited information about true stressstrain curves can be found in the literature. Most simulation engineers

0167-6636/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.mechmat.2007.11.006

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use the material properties supplied by software companies, which are very limited and sometimes unproven. True stressstrain curves can be obtained using tensile (Bridgman, 1952; Cabezas and Celentano, 2004; Koc and Stok, 2004; Komori, 2002; Mirone, 2004; Zhang, 1995; Zhang et al., 1999), compression (Choi et al., 1997; Gelin and Ghouati, 1995; Haggag et al., 1990; Lee and Altan, 1972; Michino and Tanaka, 1996; Osakada et al., 1991), ball indentation (Cheng and Cheng, 1999; Huber and Tsakmakis, 1999a,b; Lee et al., 2005; Nayebi et al., 2002), punch (Campitelli et al., 2004; Husain et al., 2004; Isselin et al., 2006), torsion (Bressan and Unfer, 2006), and notch tensile (Springmann and Kuna, 2005) tests. Haddadi et al. (2006) and Bouvier et al. (2006) studied the anisotropic behaviors of sheet metals under large plastic deformations using the simple shear test. Most of these methods obtain true stressstrain relations only for strains less than 0.5. However, the maximum strain often exceeds 1.0 in bulk metal forming, such as in forging, extrusion, and rolling. Sometimes it reaches 3.0 in multi-stage automatic cold forging, the so-called cold-former forging used to produce fasteners. Recently, many researchers have tried to obtain true stressstrain curves using nite element methods, see e.g. (Cabezas and Celentano, 2004; Campitelli et al., 2004; Choi et al., 1997; Husain et al., 2004; Isselin et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2005; Mirone, 2004; Nayebi et al., 2002; Springmann and Kuna, 2005). In a tensile test, the true strain reaches its maximum value at the smallest cross-section in the necked region, and it may exceed 1.5 just before a ductile material fractures. Therefore, one should be able to obtain the ow stress of materials at a large strain if nite element methods are used to predict the localized deformation behavior during a tensile test. A few researchers have attempted to obtain the ow stress at a large strain using simulation and experimental approaches, but these applications have been quite limited, see e.g. (Cabezas and Celentano, 2004; Mirone, 2004). The rst step in obtaining the true stress at a large strain from a tensile test is to predict the onset of necking exactly using analytical, numerical, or experimental methods. Many researchers have applied nite element methods to predict the onset of necking (Joun et al., 2007). However, all researchers who have used simple bar models between gage marks of a tensile test specimen have

included various imperfections or constraints at the ends to allow necking to take place articially. Several researchers have used a full tensile test specimen, including a grip, as the analysis model. A full specimen model causes some diculty when matching experimental data with predictions and thereby generalizing the approach. Dumoulin et al. ` ` (2003) satised the Considere criterion (Considere, 1885) using a full model of a sheet specimen. However, they did not discuss the accuracy of their predictions compared with experiments in a quantitative manner. Joun et al. (2006) were the rst to obtain accurate nite element solutions that sat` ised the Considere criterion exactly in an engineering sense using a perfect tensile test analysis model, that is, a cylindrical specimen consisting of a simple bar model without any imperfections. They recently predicted the exact onset of necking using a rigidplastic nite element method (Joun et al., 2007) and Hollomons constitutive law. This paper presents a new method based on our previous research (Joun et al., 2007) and an iterative error-reducing scheme to obtain the true stressstrain relationship at a large strain from the localized deformation behavior in the necked region. 2. Introduction to nite element analysis of the tensile test In this chapter, we summarized the previous study (Joun et al., 2007) on nite element analysis of the tensile test, on which the current study is based. 2.1. Description of a tensile test Fig. 1 shows a typical tensile test result selected to illustrate and apply our approach. The material is SWCH10A. The radius of the cylindrical tensile test specimen (see Fig. 2a) is 3.125 mm and its distance between the two gauge marks is 25 mm. In Table 1, the experimental results of elongation versus tensile load are listed around the maximum load point and Fig. 1 shows the engineering stressstrain curve obtained by the tensile test of the specimen. As seen in Fig. 1, the tensile strength is 357 MPa and the engineering strain at the necking point is 0.135. The universal test machine used is Instron 5592-HVL and the test speed was kept below 1.0 mm/min to reduce the eect of rate-dependency of the material.

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2.2. Rigid-plastic nite element formulae

Measured

400

Engineering stress (MPa)

Necking point

300

200

100

A plastic ow analysis problem in tensile test is to nd the velocity eld vi which satises the following boundary value problem: The material is denoted as the domain V with the boundary S. The boundary S, as denoted in Fig. 2b, can be divided into the velocity-prescribed boundary S vi , where the velocity is given as vi i the traction-prescribed boundary v n n S ti , where the stress vector is given as ti i It t is assumed that the material is incompressible, i.e., vi,i = 0, isotropic and rigid-viscoplastic and obeys the Hubervon Mises yield criterion and its associated ow rule, that is
0.5

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Engineering strain

r0ij

2 r _ e _ ij 3 e

Fig. 1. Experimental results of a tensile test.

yx = 0

v y 1/ 60 mm/ s

Gage mark

_ where r0ij and eij are deviatoric stress tensor and strain-rate tensor, respectively. The material is not  rate-dependent and the ow stress r in Eq. (1) is assumed to be a function of only eective strain , e i.e., r. It is also assumed that the eect of r  e acceleration and gravity on force equilibrium is negligible and the process is isothermal. When the penalty method for the incompressibility condition is employed, the weak-form of the above boundary value problem can be written as Z Z XZ 0 i xi ds 0 2 _ rii xij dV K eij xij dV t
V V S ti

vx =0

tx = 0

(n )

xy = 0

ty =0

(n )

Gage mark

where xij 1 xi;j xj;i , and the weighting func2 tion xi is arbitrary except that it vanishes on S vi . K is a large positive constant called penalty constant that maintains the incompressibility condition _ approximately and has a meaning of K eii rij =3 . Previously, we dened the reference stressstrain curve as follows (Joun et al., 2007):  r K N nN e 3

vy =0

yx = 0

Fig. 2. Finite element model of the tensile test specimen: (a) analysis domain and (b) nite element mesh system and boundary conditions.

where KN is the reference strength coecient and nN is the reference strain hardening exponent. The reference strain hardening exponent, denoted as nN, is dened as the true strain at the necking point, that is nN ln1 eN e 4

Table 1 Experimental results of the tensile test around the maximum load point Elongation (mm) Load (N) 3.666 10,929 3.375 10,928 3.384 10,946 3.386 10,951 3.394 10,947 3.402 10,929 3.411 10,935 3.420 10,928 3.428 10,926

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where eN is the engineering strain at the necking e point. The reference strength coecient, denoted as KN, is dened by making the ow stress curve of Eq. (3) pass through the necking point in the true stressstrain curve. Therefore, the reference strength coecient can be found from KN rN 1 eN e e ln1 eN e
ln1eN e

where rN is the engineering stress at the maximum e load point, i.e., the necking point. 2.3. Analysis model for the tensile test simulation and the simulation results If we select the whole tensile specimen as the analysis domain, sometimes called a full analysis model, it is dicult to trace the deformation between the gauge marks on the tensile specimen, as it is not trivial to construct a structured nite element mesh system with nodes on the gauge marks. An important factor in tensile testing is the deformation between the gauge marks. The material between the gauge marks and the grips helps to maintain uniaxial loading in the material between the gauge marks. Therefore, in the computer simu750 Measured and fitted Extrapolated

500

Necking point

250

0.5

1.5

True strain

 Fig. 3. Reference stressstrain curve, dened by r K N nN . e

lation of the tensile test, it is desirable to take one half of the material between the gauge marks as the axisymmetric analysis model and to consider the velocity or displacement prescribed boundary in the axial direction, and the traction-free boundary in the radial direction at both ends as indicated in Fig. 2b. Of course, the analysis model should produce similar results to the full analysis model. The analysis model has no imperfection that purposefully triggers localization of the specimen at the desired region. Experience allows us to postulate that necking occurs at either end in the perfect analysis model used in this study. Therefore, one quarter of the longitudinal crosssection between the two gage marks is selected as a nite element analysis domain, as seen in Fig. 2a. The analysis domain is discretized into a structured nite element mesh system with linear isoparametric quadrilateral elements, as shown in Fig. 2b, by dividing the rectangle evenly by 15 and 300 divisions in the x and y directions, respectively. The nite element model in Fig. 2b does not contain any imperfections and the traction in the radial direction is free, which is nearly the same as the real tensile test. Therefore, the analysis model is ideal. With the engineering stress and strain obtained from the tensile test in Section 2.1, nN and KN are calculated as 0.127 and 526.350 MPa from Eqs. (4) and (5), respectively. Fig. 3 shows the reference stressstrain curve dened by Eq. (3). Finite element analysis was performed by a commercial forging simulator AFDEX2D (Joun and Lee (1997), Joun et al. (1998), http://engine.gsnu.ac.kr/~msjoun/afdex.htm), which was developed based on the rigid-thermoviscoplastic nite element method. To prevent smoothing of the state variables, including eective stress and strain, we avoided re-meshing during the simulation. The solution was obtained after 300 solution steps using the reference stressstrain curve shown in Fig. 3. In Table 2, the predicted results of elongation versus tensile load are listed around the maximum load point. The predictions and experiments of the tensile loads with respect to elongations are compared in Fig. 4. As summarized in Tables 1 and 2, the predicted and measured tensile loads at the

Table 2 Simulation results of the tensile test around the maximum load point Elongation (mm) Load (N) 3.666 10,950 3.375 10,950 3.384 10,950 3.386 109,501 3.394 10,950 3.402 10,950 3.411 10,950 3.420 10,950 3.428 10,950

True stress (MPa)

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Necking point

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10000

Load (N)

7500

5000

2500

Measured Reference

10

Elongation (mm)

Fig. 4. Comparison of experiments with tensile test predictions.

necking point are 10,951 N and 10,951 N, respectively, and the predicted and measured elongations at the necking point are 3.386 mm and 3.386 mm, respectively. The predicted and experimental results are identical at the necking point. This is because of the reference stressstrain curve employed. Consequently, it has been revealed (Joun et al., 2007) that the necking point can be exactly predicted with Hollomons constitutive law, which compares well ` with the related theory (Considere, 1885). 3. Acquisition of the stressstrain relationship after necking It was explained in the previous chapter that the reference stressstrain curve in Fig. 3 must be used to predict the necking point exactly in an engineering sense. However, problems arise from the fact that the dierence between predictions and experiments increases with the elongation, as shown in Fig. 4, and that the true strain of the material during cold forging sometimes exceeds the true strain at the necking point by more than a dozen times. Therefore, the reference stressstrain curve cannot be used to predict the material behavior exactly after necking occurs. An appropriate scheme is thus necessary to obtain an improved true stressstrain curve from the reference stressstrain curve. In this paper, we predict the exact engineering stressstrain curve using a nite element simulation of a tensile test by improving iteratively the true stressstrain curve. After necking occurs, the non-uniformity of the true strain increases rapidly in the longitudinal

direction. The maximum strain occurs at the minimum cross-section where the shear stress is free due to symmetry and the non-uniformity of the strain distribution is comparatively low. Therefore, it is relatively easy to dene the representative strain at the minimum cross section. Through nite element analysis, one can trace the minimum cross-section of the tensile test specimen at a specied or sampled elongation di. The representative strain of the minimum cross-section at elongation di, denoted as eiR , can be calculated from nite element solutions of the tensile test. The dierence between the measured load F it and the predicted load F ie at elongation di can be reduced by modifying the true stress riR corresponding to the representative strain eiR . In this paper, the representative strain eiR is dened using the following average area scheme: R e i dA i 6 eR A i A where Ai indicates the area of the minimum crosssection of the tensile test specimen at the sampled elongation di. It is believed that the representative strain dened by Eq. (6) alleviates the eect of the heterogeneities of stress and strain occurred during tensile test. The current true stress riR;old riR at eiR; is modied to give the new true stress riR;new by multiplying Fi the current true stress by F it as follows:
e

riR;new

riR;old

Fi it Fe

An iterative algorithm based on the above idea is proposed to obtain the improved true stressstrain curve. The reference stressstrain curve is used before necking occurs. After necking, the true stressstrain relationship is interpolated linearly using the sampled points (eiR ; riR ) dened at the elongation di, as shown in Fig. 5. The detailed procedure used to calculate the improved sampled points (eiR ; riR ) at the sampled elongation di is as follows. In the algorithm, ei;j and ri;j are the j-times modied R R strain and stress, respectively, at the sampled elongation di. Step 1: Calculate the reference strain hardening exponent nN and the reference strength coecient KN from tensile test experiments using Eqs. (4) and (5). Select the sampled elongations di(i = 1, 2, . . . , M) from the experimental data after the necking point.

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750

591

Sampled points

True stress (MPa)

500
2 3 4 5 6

10

Necking point

250 Measured and fitted Reference First improved 0

an example, and gives the improved stressstrain curve from the rst iteration. This curve was improved from the reference stressstrain curve using our approach. Fig. 6 compares the predicted loadelongation curves obtained using the reference and improved stressstrain curves with the measured loadelongation curve. The loadelongation curve predicted from the improved stressstrain curve was considerably more accurate. Quite accurate results were obtained after a single iteration, although the maximum elongation was quite large. The maximum error was 474 N or 6.04% of the measured load. This error could be
1.5

0.5

True strain

12500
Necking point

Fig. 5. Modied true stressstrain curve calculated after rst iteration.

10000

True stress (MPa)

Step 2: Conduct a nite element analysis of the tensile test using the reference stressstrain curve and then calculate eR i 1; 2; . . . ; M at the sami pled elongation di from the nite element solutions of the tensile test. Step 3: Set j = 1 and ei;j eiR and then calculate R n ri;j from ri;j K N ei;j N i 1; 2 . . . ; M. R R R Step 4: Conduct a nite element analysis of the tensile test using both the perfect analysis model and the true stressstrain curve dened by nN, KN and ei;j ; ri;j i l; 2; . . . ; M. Then check the R R convergence of the soluti on at the sampled el ongati on di(i = l,2, . . . , M) by comparing the measured load F it with the predicted load F ie . If convergence is achieved, stop the iterations. Otherwise, calculate eiR from the nite element solutions and set ei;j1 eiR . R Step 5: Calculate the stress riR at e ei;j1 i 1; 2; . . . ; M by linearly interpolating R the sampled points, ei;j ; ri;j i 1; 2; . . . ; M R R and calculate the improved stress ri;j1 at R e ei;j1 R ri;j1 R riR F it F ie 8

Load (N)

7500

5000

2500

Measured Reference First improved

10

Elongation (mm)

Fig. 6. Comparison of the elongationtensile force curves.

750

500

Necking point

250

Step 6: Replace j with j + 1 and return to Step 4.

Measured and fitted Reference First improved Second improved Third improved Fourth improved

4. Application example Fig. 5 shows points corresponding to the sampled elongation di on the reference stressstrain curve as

0.5

1.5

True strain

Fig. 7. Comparison of the stressstrain curves.

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Load (N)

7500

curve of a material and a tensile test analysis, yielding exact results from an engineering viewpoint. This is very important for simulating bulk metal forming. The approach is simple and systematic, and it can be embedded into commercial metalforming simulation software with ease. Acknowledgements

5000 Measured Reference First improved Second improved Third improved Fourth improved 0 2 4 6 8 10

2500

This work was supported by the Program for the Training of Graduate Students in Regional Innovation which was conducted by the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Energy of the Korean Government. References
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Elongation (mm)

Fig. 8. Comparison of the loadelongation curves.

Table 3 Reduction in error with the number of iterations Number of iterations Maximum error (%) 0 30.29 1 6.04 2 3.96 3 0.89 4 0.28

reduced or minimized through additional iterations. Figs. 7 and 8 show the improved stressstrain curves for several iterations and their corresponding predicted loadelongation curves, respectively. Table 3 lists the maximum errors of the predicted loads relative to the measured loads with the number of iterations. After four iterations, the maximum error was reduced to less than 0.03%, i.e., it led to the exact solution in an engineering sense. Therefore, the convergence characteristics of our scheme are quite good. 5. Concluding remarks An approach for acquiring true stressstrain curves at large strains by coupling experiments with an analysis based on a tensile test and a rigid-plastic nite element method was presented. The approach uses the reference stressstrain curve before necking occurs to predict the necking point exactly. An iterative scheme then minimizes the error between the measured and predicted loadelongation curves after necking occurs by improving the true stress strain curve. Our approach can predict the ow stress at large strains using only the measured loadelongation

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