Viscoplastic collapse of thin-walled tubes under cyclic bending

This paper presents the experimental result on the response and stability of thin-walled tubes subjected to cyclic bending with different curvature-rates. The curvature-ovalization measurement apparatus, designed by Pan et al. (1998), was used for conducting the present curvature-controlled experiments on thin-walled tubular specimens of 304 stainless steel. It is observed that the higher the applied curvature-rate, the greater is the degree of hardening of metal tube. However, the ovalization of tribe cross-section increases when the applied curvature-rate increases. Furthermore, due to the higher degree of the ovalization of tube cross-section for higher curvature-rates under cyclic bending, the number of cycles to produce buckling is correspondingly reduced.