Size Effect on the Post-Necking Behaviour of Dual-Phase 800 Steel: Modelling and Experiment

• Published in: Materials Vol. 16; no. 4; p. 1458
• Main Authors: Zhang, Lintao, Harrison, Will, Mehraban, Shahin, Brown, Stephen G R, Lavery, Nicholas P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 09.02.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Alloys; Analysis; Aspect ratio; Automobile industry; Axial stress; Chemical elements; Damage assessment; Digital imaging; Dual phase steels; dual-phase steel; Ductility; Elongation; Energy consumption; Experiments; fracture angle; Fractures; Mathematical models; Mechanical properties; Modelling; Necking; necking modes; Numerical analysis; Prototyping; rapid alloy prototyping; Size effects; Steel; Steel industry; Tensile strength; Tensile tests; Ultimate tensile strength; United Kingdom; India; aspect ratio; rapid alloy prototyping; necking modes; fracture angle; dual-phase steel
• ISSN: 1996-1944; 1996-1944
• DOI: 10.3390/ma16041458

This work investigated the feasibility of using a miniaturised non-standard tensile specimen to predict the post-necking behaviour of the materials manufactured via a rapid alloy prototyping (RAP) approach. The experimental work focused on the determination of the Lankford coefficients (r-value) of dual-phase 800 (DP800) steel and the digital image correlation (DIC) for some cases, which were used to help calibrate the damage model parameters of DP800 steel. The three-dimensional numerical simulations focused on the influence of the size effect (aspect ratio, AR) on the post-necking behaviour, such as the strain/stress/triaxiality evolutions, fracture angles, and necking mode transitions. The modelling showed that although a good correlation can be found between the predicted and experimentally observed ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and total elongation. The standard tensile specimen with a gauge length of 80 mm exhibited a fracture angle of ∼55°, whereas the smaller miniaturised non-standard specimens with low exhibited fractures perpendicular to the loading direction. This shows that care must be taken when comparing the post-necking behaviour of small-scale tensile tests, such as those completed as a part of a RAP approach, to the post-necking behaviours of standard full-size test specimens. However, the modelling work showed that this behaviour is well represented, demonstrating a transition between the fracture angles of the samples between 2.5 and 5. This provides more confidence in understanding the post-necking behaviour of small-scale tensile tests.