Prediction of shear-induced fracture in sheet metal forming

Necking has been the dominant failure mode in sheet metal forming industry and several analytical and numerical tools were developed to predict the onset of necking. However, the introduction of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) with reduced ductility brought up an issue of a shear fracture which could not be predicted using the concept of Forming Limit Curve (FLC). The Modified Mohr-Coulomb fracture criterion (MMC) was recently shown to be applicable to problems involving ductile fracture of materials and sheets. In the limiting case of plane stress, the fracture locus consists of four branches when represented on the plane of the equivalent strain to fracture and the stress triaxiality. A transformation of above 2D fracture locus to the space of principal strains was performed which revealed the existence of two new branches not extensively studied before. The existence of those branches explains the formation of shear-induced fracture. As an illustration of this new approach, initiation and propagation of cracks is predicted and compared with series of deep-drawing punch tests of ThyssenKrupp AHSS (grade RA-K 40/70, standard HCT690T) performed at ThyssenKrupp. It was shown that the location of fracture as well as the magnitude of punch travel corresponding to first fracture was correctly predicted by MMC fracture criterion for both circular and square punch.