Improvement of Numerical Modelling Considering Plane Strain Material Characterization with an Elliptic Hydraulic Bulge Test

A precise characterization of material behavior is necessary to identify yield criteria or hardening laws for an accurate numerical design of sheet metal forming processes. Current models like Yld2000-2d or Hill'48 do not consider the plane strain state, though this condition is primary cause of failure in deep drawing. It is anticipated that an improved yield locus contour which considers the stress under plane strain conditions leads to better results in numerical simulations of a deep drawing process. Within this contribution, a new experimental setup to characterize both principal stress components under plane strain as additional input data for material modelling is presented. Therefore, hydraulic bulge tests are carried out with a novel elliptical die, which implements a plane strain condition. Moreover, the improvement of the material model is investigated exemplarily for the three sheet metal alloys DC06, DP600 and AA5182. The resulting material parameters are used to identify the yield locus for plane strain by varying the yield locus exponent of Yld2000-2d. The results prove that considering plane strain yield locus results in a better sheet thickness distribution in comparison to conventional modelling of the deep drawing process.