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This article deals with numerical simulation of necking. It draws the attention onto the importance of the description of strain-hardening and the effects on the evolution of necking. In order to compare necking evolution in relation with different plasticity models, a tracking procedure which consists in determining the evolution over time of discharged volumes of the sample is adopted. Models that take into account physical phenomena at the microscopic level and especially the heterogeneities of materials from a mechanical point of view seem well suited to fit experimental evidence connected to necking.

This paper presents the determination of virtual micro-forming limit diagrams by a behaviour law adapted to thin materials introducing the effect of microstructure heterogeneity. The observed size effect, i.e. the decrease in flow stress when the grain size increased, was modelled by a specific phenomenological behaviour law. A reduced numerical simulation by a finite element method rendered it possible to carry out very fast simulations of the different modes of deformation and to determine the virtual micro-forming limit diagrams from the onset of necking. This methodology was compared with experimental results on aluminium 1050A (99.5%) of thickness 0.2 mm. The comparison of the experimental and numerical data demonstrated good agreement between the real and virtual results obtained by such a methodology.

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