PAMM · Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 14, 1037 – 1040 (2014) / DOI 10.1002/pamm.

201410492

Prediction of damage in cold bulk forming processes

Maksim Zapara1,∗ , Eva Augenstein1 , and Dirk Helm1
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM, Wöhlerstrasse 11, 79108 Freiburg, Germany

In the present paper a practically relevant extension of the known modelling methods with regard to the description of form-
ing limits of steels typically used in the cold bulk forming is developed and implemented in a commercial finite element
code Abaqus. The modeling approach is based on the so-called micromechanical damage concepts which represent the mi-
crostructure evolution more detailed than phenomenological models and, therefore, provide better prediction of damage and
failure during the forming process. Particularly, the well-known damage models of Gurson as well as Gologanu-Leblond are
considered. It is shown that in combination with fracture criteria such models are able to describe failure in bulk forming.

c 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

1 Introduction
Bulk formed components are widely used in many systems with high safety requirements (cars, railway machinery, construc-
tion machinery, aircrafts, ships, etc.). A major advantage of cold bulk forming is the excellent material utilization and the
low energy use related to the weight of a finished part. Commercial finite element (FE) software is applied for the design
and optimization of bulk forming processes. Overall, the simulation of such processes has reached a high level; however, the
different aspects and targets of the simulation have to be evaluated individually. Available FE codes do not succeed in accurate
predicting of the evolution of damage and failure in industrial bulk forming processes. It is still not possible to design optimal
and resource efficient bulk forming processes only by means of FE simulations.
Simplified approaches are often used in the industrial practice in order to characterize the bulk forming limits. These
approaches formulate a macromechanical damage criterion usually in dependence of the current stress-strain state. More
sophisticated criteria (e.g., Cockroft-Latham [3]) take the forming history by integration of state variables into account. Such
criteria allow predicting the location but not the evolution of damage in bulk forming processes. Their major disadvantage is
that the influence of the microstructure on the mechanical behavior and, in particular, on the process-dependent evolution of
damage cannot be considered reasonably. Thus, the damage state of the as-delivered material and the loading history cannot
be adequately included in the simulation.
The phenomenological damage model by Lemaitre [6] can be mentioned as a micro-mechanically motivated one. In bulk
forming it was applied among others by Soyarslan et al. [9] for the simulation of extrusion processes. Damage is quantified
by a scalar parameter, which describes the reduction of the cross-sectional area due to the evolution of damage. The reduction
of the cross-sectional area leads to an increased effective stress in (undamaged) matrix material. In this way, the influence of
damage on the mechanical behavior is taken into account. However, the physical mechanisms of damage are considered only
within a phenomenological theory.
The main goal of the present study is to develop and implement a practically relevant extension of the known modelling
methods with regard to the description of forming limits of steels typically used in the cold bulk forming. The modeling
approach is mainly based on the so-called micromechanical damage concepts which represent the microstructure evolution
much more detailed and, therefore, provide better prediction of damage and failure during the forming process.

2 Theoretical framework
Most of the materials that are used in cold bulk forming are ductile metals, which fail by void nucleation, growth and coa-
lescence (Fig. 1). Even in their as-delivered state such materials may contain some small amount of voids (initial porosity).
Increasing plastic deformation leads to nucleation of voids at the microstructure imperfections: usually at second phase par-
ticles, inclusions, grain boundaries and intermetallic phases. At the same time, the volume of existing voids increases. The
formation of macroscopic voids, microcracks and, ultimately, the formation of the macroscopic crack are initiated by the void
coalescence.
These phenomena are well described within the framework of the micromechanical damage models: the known approaches
of Gurson [5], Gologanu and Leblond [4] or Ponte Castañeda [7] are based on assumptions that these observations represent
the behavior of a single void in the matrix material. Based on the theory of plasticity, macromechanical flow potentials can be
derived which reflect the influence of porosity and, possibly, of void shape on the plastic flow. The evolution of porosity and
void shape is taken into account as well as the interaction between the mechanical behavior and damage state. Decrease of

∗ Corresponding author: e-mail maksim.zapara@iwm.fraunhofer.de, phone +49 761 514 2352, fax +49 761 514 2510

c 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
1038 Young Researchers’ Minisymposia 4: Recent Advances in Porous Metal Plasticity

Fig. 1: Description of the damage evolution within a physically-based material model.

porosity or damage under certain load conditions can also be described. Adding an evolution equation for void nucleation and
a criterion for the modeling of void coalescence (e.g. Thomason [10] or Brown and Embury [2]) makes it possible to describe
the ductile damage of metallic materials in many cases.
The Gurson [5] model is the classical damage mechanics model for plastic materials containing voids. It is based on the
analysis of the plastic deformation fields around spherical voids. The resulting plasticity law depends on the void volume
fraction (also called porosity), which grows or decreases depending on the stress state. Limitations of the Gurson model
were discussed extensively in literature with respect to both experiments and numerical cell model calculations. Most of the
limitations arise from the facts (1) that only spherical voids are considered and (2) that the model is generally too stable, i.e. it
does not properly describe strain localization to a narrow sheet of voids. Therefore, in the present work the porous plasticity
model of Gologanu et al. [4] is used, which is a generalization of the Gurson model to spheroidal void shapes.
Both the Gurson and the Gologanu-Leblond models predict the final fracture in principle, but the prediction is reasonably
accurate only for high stress triaxialities, while for low triaxiality, both models are too stable and in fact do not predict fracture
at all [8]. Hence, it is necessary to impose failure criteria. Following the work by Riedel et al. [8] a combination of two criteria
is used in this paper; failure occurs as soon as one of these two criteria is fulfilled. Among the two criteria the Thomason
criterion [10] usually dominates at high triaxiality. At low triaxialities the Brown and Embury criterion, which contains only
geometrical quantities, is prevailing [2]. The rationale behind the Thomason criterion is that fracture occurs once the ligament
between voids becomes unstable against tensile collapse, whereas the Brown-Embury criterion is derived from the argument
that failure occurs once the ligament between neighboring voids can accommodate a 45 degree shear band.
The Gologanu-Leblond model together with the combined Thomason and Brown-Embury criterion was implemented as a
user defined material model (VUMAT) in the finite element program ABAQUS/Explicit and used for numerical simulations.

3 Experiments and simulations

Steel 20MnCr5 is extensively used in cold forging / bulk forming and was chosen as the main test material in the present
study. In addition, two other typical cold bulk forming steels 41CrS4 and S355J2 have been tested in order to demonstrate the
transferability of the simulation strategy to other materials. The material behavior and damage mechanisms were identified

c 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.gamm-proceedings.com
PAMM · Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 14 (2014) 1039

in experiments. In order to determine the flow curves the upsetting tests with cylindrical specimens were carried out (Fig.
2). The barreling shape of a cylinder under compression was determined during the test by means of the so-called shadow
technique. By adjusting the barreling diameter and force-displacement curve obtained in tests and simulations the flow curves
were determined and the friction was estimated.
Microstructural investigations using light and scanning electron microscopy gave information about the microstructure,
grain size and shape as well as presence and distribution of nonmetallic inclusions (Fig.3). The analysis of the crack area in
cylindrical specimens reveals the fact that manganese-sulfide inclusions were partially dissolved from the matrix, thus, being
the sites of the void nucleation as well as the subsequent crack initiation and growth.
The parameters of the Gologanu-Leblond model [4] were determined in tensile tests with round bar specimens (cf., Fig. 4)
by fitting the drop of the force-displacement curve in test and FE simulation (see discussion, e.g. in [8])
Various tests were performed for the identification and analysis of significant damage and failure mechanisms typical for
cold bulk forming processes. One of these tests is a compression of a cylindrical billet with a longitudinal notch [1]. This
geometry is interesting for two main reasons: fracture is easily localized since it appears at the center of the notch as the notch
opens both in the radial and longitudinal directions during the longitudinal compression; mechanical loadings are close to
what the material experiences during bulk forming processes. Indeed, the plot of stress triaxiality at the center of the notch is
negative at the beginning of the compression test and becomes positive during compression, due to the radial opening of the
notch (Fig. 5).

Fig. 2: Upsetting test: cylindrical specimen before and after compression (left), flow curves (middle), optical measurement of the barreling
diameter of a cylinder under compression (right).

Fig. 3: Microstructure in the initial state (left) and deformed state (right) of a cylindrical specimen made of steel 20MnCr5.

Fig. 4: Tensile test: FE simulation and real specimen (left), force-displacement curves for steel 20MnCr5 (right).

www.gamm-proceedings.com
c 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
1040 Young Researchers’ Minisymposia 4: Recent Advances in Porous Metal Plasticity

Fig. 5: Compression of a cylindrical billet with a longitudinal notch: specimen shape before and after compression (left) crack in the notch
area (middle) FE simulation: red elements predict ductile failure (right).

Fig. 6: Determination of damage during compression of a cylindrical billet with a longitudinal notch.

During the compression test the evolution of damage at the notch center was recorded by a high-resolution camera. Since
the determination of damage is very specific and can vary depending on the particular process, it was decided to observe it
during the five tests performed: a) when the possible crack (as a surface inhomogeneity) is becoming visible (green area in
the diagram at Fig. 6), and b) when the macroscopic crack is opening on the surface (red area in the diagram at Fig. 6).
The formation of the surface inhomogeneity as a pre-stage to the crack begins shortly after the stress triaxiality values (gray
dashed line) appear in the positive range. The combined Thomason / Brown-Embury failure criterion (black line) is reached
approximately when the first crack occurs at the surface.
The further steps of the current research project include extension of the existing micromechanical damage models, their
numerical implementation and application to industrial processes. An integrated concept to the enhanced computer-aided
design of bulk forming processes through the advanced material modeling and prediction of damage and failure will help the
forming industry to avoid cost- and time-consuming testing cycles during the tool design and to apply complex component
geometries more easily.

Acknowledgements The research project IGF 17678 N is supported by the Research Association “Forschungsgesellschaft Stahlverfor-
mung e.V.” and funded through the AiF in frames of the Program for Funding of the Collaborative Industrial Research (IGF) by the German
Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy based on a decision of the German Parliament.

References
[1] P.-O. Bouchard, L. Bourgeon, S. Fayolle, and K. Mocellin, Int. J. Mater. Form. 4, 299 (2011).
[2] L.M. Brown and J.D. Embury, Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. on Strength of Metals and Alloys, London, GB (Institute of Metals, London, 1973),
pp. 164–169.
[3] M. Cockcroft and D. Latham, J. Inst. Metals 96, 33 (1968).
[4] M. Gologanu, J.-B. Leblond, and J. Devaux, J. Mech. Phys. Solids 41, 1723 (1993).
[5] A. Gurson, J. Eng. Mater. Technol. 99, 2 (1977).
[6] J. Lemaitre, Int. J. Fracture 42, 87 (1990).
[7] P. Ponte Castañeda and M. Zaidman, J. Mech. Phys. Solids 42, 1459 (1994).
[8] H. Riedel, F. Andrieux, and T. Walde, Steel Res. Int. 78, 818 (2007).
[9] C. Soyarslan, A.E. Tekkaya, and U. Akyuz, ZAMM 88, 436 (2008).
[10] P.F. Thomason, Ductile Fracture of Metals (Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1990).

c 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.gamm-proceedings.com