Anti-buckling System for Flat Specimens Investigations under Cyclic Tension-compression

Abstract Modern automobile and airplane structures made of sheet metals or composites require usage of thinner and stronger materials. On the other hand, manufacturers are trying to reduce production costs by shortening the fabrication processes and by application of computed simulation for forming operation. Therefore, it is necessary to better understand and more accurately investigate deformation behaviour of sheet alloys. Testing of flat specimens under compression and cyclic tension-compression within large deformation procures a lot of problems. One of them is the buckling phenomenon. A new version of the device mounted in a standard testing machine was developed and geometry of the specimen for validation of the device was proposed. Specimens of DP690 steel with nominal thickness equal to 1.6 mm were investigated at ambient temperature. Tension-compression cyclic tests within a strain range ± 0.04 were executed starting in tension direction. It is shown that the results are repeatable.