Investigation on the ductile fracture of a high-strength dual-phase steel with anisotropic damage mechanics model

In this study, a hybrid experimental and numerical investigation is implemented to characterize the plasticity and ductile fracture behavior of a high-strength dual-phase steel. Uniaxial tensile tests are conducted along the three typical directions of rolled sheet metals for the anisotropic plastic behavior, while the hydraulic bulge test is applied for the flow behavior under equiaxial biaxial tension. Further tensile tests are conducted on various featured dog-bone specimens to study the fracture behavior of the material from the uniaxial to plane-strain tension. On the numerical side, the evolving non-associated Hill48 (enHill48) plasticity model considering anisotropic hardening and plastic strain ratio evolution is employed to describe the anisotropic plastic deformation. The extended enHill48 model with damage and fracture formulation is further calibrated and validated in the study to describe the ductile fracture behavior of the steel under various stress states. Through a comparison of the results based on the evolving anisotropic model with the isotropic Mises model, it is concluded that even for materials that show only minor initial plastic anisotropy, it could develop a non-negligible influence on the large plastic deformation and the prediction of both deformation and fracture shows profound improvement with the evolving anisotropic plasticity model.