Influence of thickness reduction on forming limits of mild steel DC01

The Forming Limit Diagram (FLD) is an essential tool to assess sheet metal formability in sheet metal deep drawing. In FLDs/FLC (Forming Limit Curve) is representation of material formability limits at which material is not able to withstand higher deformation. In this work, different methodologies for FLC determination of mild steel DC01 are investigated. The Nakajima test is a well-known experiment for FLC determination but, however, contact conditions that can appear in the form of either friction or pressure may perturb the results. The former may cause the need for repetitions for different widths by altering the necking location, whereas the latter may be responsible for overestimation of the material formability. Another method for FLC determination without those effects is to use the cruciform specimen test under biaxial loading conditions. As the first step, Necking has to be induced at the center of cruciform specimen by thickness reduction or groove. Therefore, in this work, the cruciform geometry under biaxial loading is optimized using FEM through the comparative analysis. The goal of simulation was to induce the necking just in the thinner gauge, not adjacent zone. Thereupon, different loads on biaxial machine's axes can provide different strain paths at the thinner gauge of the optimized specimen. After reviewing of various researches in connection with thickness reduction effect on sheet metal deformation, it was found that thickness reduction might not influence the material formability during uniaxial and plane strain tensions, but it was observed that there is gradual decrease of limit strains with decreasing the thickness for equi-biaxial tension.Manufacturing process like milling, cause small defects on material surface and local instability takes place at lower level of deformation. Besides, it was found that existence of through thickness normal stress leads to higher value of FLC. Deformation during Nakajima and cruciform experiments were captured by Digital Image Correlation (DIC) system. The execution and evaluation of those experiments are explained in detail and Time Dependent Method (TDM) was applied to detect the beginning time of instability. Experimental strain paths are compared with consideration of strain rates and, as it was expected, FLC from cruciform specimen is lower than Nakajima one, especially on the right hand side of FLD. The remarkable difference can be attributed to defects in the material and existence of through-thickness normal stress, which leads to overestimation of the material formability during Nakajima experiment.