Investigation of Elongation at Fracture in a High Speed Sheet Metal Forming Process

This paper investigates the dynamic elongation at fracture of conventional steels, advanced high strength steels and nonferrous metals, such as aluminium and magnesium alloys. Dynamic tensile tests were carried out using a high speed material testing machine at various strain rates ranging from 0.001/s to 200/s. The results show that the elongation at fracture of sheet metals does not simply decrease with the increase of the strain rate. The elongation of SPCC, SPRC450R, TRIP600 and AZ31 decreases when the tests are carried out under the quasi-static state at the strain rate of 0.1/s, but increases again when the tests are carried out at the strain rate of 0.1/s up to the strain rate of 200/s. Furthermore, DP600 and AA7003-T7 show the tendency that the tensile elongation increases as the strain rate increases. This tendency is related to the microstructure and forming history of the sheet metal. It is concluded that localized strain rate hardening in the necking region induces the enlargement of the necking region and thus the increased elongation. This phenomenon is worth being considered to predict the fracture of sheet metal products in high speed sheet metal forming.