FINITE-ELEMENT SIMULATION OF THE BENDING PROCESS OF STEEL/POLYMER/STEEL LAMINATE SHEETS

A steel/polymer/steel three-layer laminate has been developed for weight reduction and vibration-damping of automobile parts and panels. The bending process of the laminate sheets is simulated by an incremental elasto-plastic finite-element method under the plane-strain condition with care taken to describe the boundary conditions of penetration, separation and alternation of the sliding-stricking state of friction. The simulation demonstrates clearly the processes of the generation of a folding defect in the laminate sheet at the bent flange and a shear defect between the two skin steel layers along the entire length of the laminate sheet. The calculated sheet geometries and the punch load-punch stroke relationship agree satisfactorily with the corresponding experimental results.