Predictions for ductile tearing of a geometrically complex Ti-6Al-4V plate were generated using a Unified Creep Plasticity Damage model in fully coupled thermal stress simulations. Uniaxial tension and butterfly shear tests performed at displacement rates of 0.0254 and 25.4 mm/s were also simulated. Results from these simulations revealed that the material temperature increase due to plastic work can have a dramatic effect on material ductility predictions in materials that exhibit little strain hardening. This occurs because the temperature increase causes the apparent hardening of the material to decrease which leads to the initiation of deformation localization and subsequent ductile tearing earlier in the loading process.
Fracture or tearing of ductile metals is a pervasive engineering concern, yet accurate prediction of the critical conditions of fracture remains elusive. Sandia National Laboratories has been developing and implementing several new modeling methodologies to address problems in fracture, including both new physical models and new numerical schemes. The present study provides a double-blind quantitative assessment of several computational capabilities including tearing parameters embedded in a conventional finite element code, localization elements, extended finite elements (XFEM), and peridynamics. For this assessment, each of four teams reported blind predictions for three challenge problems spanning crack initiation and crack propagation. After predictions had been reported, the predictions were compared to experimentally observed behavior. The metal alloys for these three problems were aluminum alloy 2024-T3 and precipitation hardened stainless steel PH13-8Mo H950. The predictive accuracies of the various methods are demonstrated, and the potential sources of error are discussed.
Many problems of practical importance involve ductile materials that undergo very large strains, in many cases to the point of failure. Examples include structures subjected to impact or blast loads, energy absorbing devices subjected to significant crushing, cold-forming manufacturing processes and others. One of the most fundamental pieces of data that is required in the analysis of this kind of problems is the fit of the uniaxial stress-strain curve of the material. A series of experiments where mild steel plates were punctured with a conical indenter provided a motivation to characterize the true stress-strain curve until the point of failure of this material, which displayed significant ductility. The hardening curve was obtained using a finite element model of the tensile specimens that included a geometric imperfection in the form of a small reduction in the specimen width to initiate necking. An automated procedure iteratively adjusted the true stress-strain curve fit used as input until the predicted engineering stress-strain curve matched experimental measurements. Whereas the fitting is relatively trivial prior to reaching the ultimate engineering stress, the fit of the softening part of the engineering stress-stain curve is highly dependent on the finite element parameters such as element formulation and initial geometry. Results by two hexahedral elements are compared. The first is a standard, under-integrated, uniform-strain element with hourglass control. The second is a modified selectively-reduced-integration element. In addition, the effects of element size, aspect ratio and hourglass control characteristics are investigated. The effect of adaptively refining the mesh based on the aspect ratio of the deformed elements is also considered. The results of the study indicate that for the plate puncture problem, characterizing the material with the same element formulation and size as used in the plate models is beneficial. On the other hand, using different element formulations, sizes or initial aspect ratios can lead to unreliable results.