Ductile damage and failure of thin sheet metals: New biaxial experiments and numerical simulations

Abstract

The paper deals with the ductile damage and failure behavior of thin sheet metals under proportional biaxial loading paths. A newly designed specimen is presented and an experimental series with different loading ratios is performed. Corresponding numerical simulations including plastic anisotropy reflect the stress state and enable the interpretation of the different damage mechanisms. Due to fabrication issues the specimen geometry for this class of materials has to get by without notches in thickness direction and consequently the new specimens pre‐define the localization by a series of holes. The strain fields at the specimen surface are evaluated by digital image correlation and the fracture surface is analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. The experimental and numerical methods described here provide a possibility for the targeted investigation of the ductile damage behavior of thin sheet metals under proportional loading.