Numerical investigation and experimental validation of Lemaitre ductile damage model for DC04 steel and application to deep drawing process

During the metal forming process, the avoidance of ductile fracture has been of great interest to the scientific and engineering communities over the past decades. Hence, ductile damage prediction remains a key issue for achieving defect-free products. In this paper, the elastoplastic damage behaviour of DC04 steel has been studied and simulated to predict the fracture during the deep drawing process and reduce the industrial trial cost. In this context, a fully coupled elastoplastic damage model has been developed and implemented in the Abaqus explicit code using the VUMAT subroutine, knowing that the used elastoplastic and the damage parameters were identified by experimental tests. Numerical simulations have been performed to validate this model, followed by comparisons with the experimental results. These comparisons show a good correlation between the experimental and simulation results and good agreement with the empirical observations. Thus, the initiation of damage and its evolution leading to ductile fracture can be predicted using this model.