Analysis of conical tool perforation of ductile metal sheets

The perforation of a ductile metal sheet with a conical tool is accompanied by elasto–plastic bending, stretching, plastic flow and perforation initiation and propagation and ultimately it results in material fracture in the form of petals. The number and size of petals depends on the sheet thickness, material properties, tool angle, anisotropy in the material and indentation speed. In this work the mathematical relations for the fracture mechanism has been developed to analyze different parameters’ response and evaluate fracture toughness of the metal sheets of various thickness using computer code based on this analysis.