Abstract
The deformation behavior of high strength steel sheets with a tensile strength of 590 MPa under biaxial tension was investigated for a strain range from initial yielding to fracture. The test material was bent and laser welded to fabricate a tubular specimen with an inner diameter of 44.6mm, a wall thickness of 1.2mm, and an axial length of 200mm. Multiaxial tube expansion tests were performed using a servo-controlled tension-internal pressure testing machine. Many linear stress paths in the first quadrant of stress space were applied to the tubular specimens to measure the forming limit curve (FLC) and forming limit stress curve (FLSC) of the as-received sheet material, in addition to the contours of plastic work and the directions of plastic strain rates from initial yielding to fracture. Results calculated using the Yld2000-2d yield function with exponents of 6 to 8 provided the closest agreement with the measured work contours and directions of plastic strain rates for a reference plastic strain range of 0.002 ＜ε0p＜ 0.20. It was concluded that the multiaxial tube expansion test is effective for measuring the multiaxial deformation behavior of sheet metals for a wide range of plastic strains.
