Applied Mechanics and Materials Submitted: 2016-04-01

ISSN: 1662-7482, Vol. 852, pp 369-374 Revised: 2016-04-28

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.852.369 Accepted: 2016-06-14
© 2016 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland Online: 2016-09-07

Experimental Prediction and Numerical Modeling of Ductile Damage and

Failure Modeling of Aluminium Sheet Metal Specimen
M. Nalla Mohamed 1,a*, A. Praveen Kumar 2,b, A. Adil Malik3,c
1
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, SSN College of Engineering,
Kalavakkam, Chennai-603110, Tamilnadu, India.
2
Research Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, SSN College of Engineering,
Kalavakkam, Chennai-603110, Tamilnadu, India.
3
Under Graduate Student,Department of Mechanical Engineering, KCG College of Technology,
Chennai-600097, Tamilnadu, India.
a*
nallamohamedm@ssn.edu.in, bapraveenkumar@ssn.edu.in,
c
adilmalik474@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Keywords: anisotropic material, crashworthiness, high strain rate, Johnson-Cook model.

Abstract. Aluminium sheet metal is nowadays used to fabricate lighter, crashworthy, fuel efficient
and environment friendly vehicles. Ductile damage of sheet metals affects significantly the
crashworthiness, as it naturally exhibits anisotropic behavior due to the grain orientation. Johnson-
Cook (J-C) damage model is widely used in numerical simulation for assessing the failure modeling
of crash component in particular at high strain rate. The Johnson-Cook material model available in
literature is meant for isotropic material behavior which cannot be used directly for anisotropic
behavior of materials. To characterize the plastic anisotropy of the rolled sheet, the modified
Johnson-Cook material model should be developed. In this research the combination of
experimental work and numerical analysis with clear and simpler calibration strategy for damage
model is demonstrated. It aims to reduce laboratory tests using advanced numerical analysis to
predict failure in order to save overall cost and development time.

Introduction
Lighter vehicles are nowadays produced by using aluminium sheet metals as body parts
instead of steel [1]. The introduction of aluminium sheet metal also helps automotive manufacturers
to produce fuel efficient vehicles. It has also become important for automotive manufacturers to
improve the crashworthiness of the vehicles to ensure passenger and pedestrian safety [2,3]. In
practice, sheet metals are manufactured through processes like rolling or forging. Anisotropy may
be induced in a material during the manufacturing. This induced anisotropy gives rise to the concept
of orientation-dependent material properties such as yield strength, ductility, strain hardening,
fracture strength, or fatigue resistance [4-7]. As induced anisotropic of sheet metals is one of the
critical issues and plays a significant role to improve the crashworthiness, it is important to have a
material model that correctly emulates the material behavior, when the sheet metal body involved in
crash events [8,9]. Prediction of complex material models based on extensive experimental tests and
their computational is costly and time consuming. Instead, progress of numerical simulation,
namely FEA, is nowadays being used in the automotive industry. Many damage models exist to
describe the material's behaviour in plastic regime [10]. Among this, Johnson-Cook (J-C) material
model has gained wide application in numerical simulation of crash component in particular at high
strain rates. The available J-C model in literature is meant for isotropic material which cannot be
used for anisotropic materials [11]. To develop advanced material model with anisotropy behavior,
first the basic elastic plastic material model should be developed at low strain rate for different grain
orientation through experimentation. Hence, in this study, uni-axial tensile tests were first
performed in all three rolling directions to determine the material properties of aluminium sheet
metal to input in the finite element simulation using ABAQUS/Explicit©. Subsequently, finite
element analysis of tensile specimens was performed for anisotropic yield criteria to predict the

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370 Mechanical Engineering Design

onset of yielding and hardening behaviour during the course of deformation. Finally, simulation
was extended at high strain rate loading conditions to visualize the response of loading in terms of
stresses, strain and deflections. The stress strain curves are used for determining the constants of
failure model in modified J-C material model.

Development of modified Johnson and Cook material model

Material model is an essential requirement in any simulation of deformation. An isotropic
material that is subjected to high strain rates and high temperature, Johnson and Cook developed an
experimental relationship, which states the influences of temperature, strain and strain rate on Von
Misses stress. This relationship is expressed in equation 1.
̇
( )( ) ( ) (1)
̇

For small strain rates, the equation can be modified as

̇
( )( (̇ ) ) ( ) ] (2)

In order to include the anisotropic material behaviour in J-C material model, Voce hardening rule is
the best and simpler one which is expressed as
∑ ( ( ) (3)
The updated material model is
̇
[ ∑ ( ( ))] [ ( ̇ )] ( ) ] (4)

Where A, B, n, C and m: Material parameters

Qi : Adjustable constant material parameters
Ci : Adjustable constant material parameters
̇ ̇ : Plastic strain, Plastic strain rate, Reference strain rate

T, Tm,T0: Temperature, Room temperature, Melting temperature of material.

Experimental Procedure
Materials
In this study, Aluminium sheet metal used for fabricating crash component of the
automobile has been selected as a material to perform the experiment and finite element simulation.
The chemical characterization was done to check the adequate amount of composition of
aluminium. The chemical composition for the material studied in this work is shown in Table 1.
Then, the samples were cut in different directions relative to rolling direction RD , i.e., 0° RD ,
45° and 90° TD from the round sheet of thickness 1.5 mm as per the ASTM standard. The
detailed dimension and specification of the tensile test specimen is shown in the Fig.1. A slight
taper was given in order to control the necking position, with the smallest diameter being located at
the mid-section.
Table 1. Chemical composition of Aluminium specimen
Elements Si Fe Cu Mn Mg Zn Cr Ti Al
Weight (in %) 0.204 0.886 0.15 0.065 0.011 0.12 0.032 0.009 98.41
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 852 371

90°
45°

0°

Fig. 1. Geometric details of tensile specimen

Methods
The tension tests were carried out in the universal test machine. All specimens were
stretched until fracture occurred. An axial force was applied with constant displacement rate of 2, 5
and 10 mm/min. By recording elongation and force over time, it is possible to determine both
engineering stress-strain as well as true stress-strain in the material.The Fig. 2 shows the failure of
the specimen at various strain rates.

Fig. 2. Specimens after failure in tensile loading

Modelling Details
A numerical model was created using commercial finite element software
ABAQUS/Explicit [12] to simulate the tensile testing of aluminium specimen. A 3D finite element
model of the specimen was developed using ABAQUS/Explicit© software. Constitutive material
model data were obtained from experimental stress-strain data in uniaxial tension tests. The solid
model was developed using mapped meshing, and 3D linear hexahedral elements (C3D8R) were
used. A mesh density study was performed by changing the seed size of each element until there
was no significant change in stress. The final element size for meshing the test specimen is 0.1 mm.
To best simulate the tensile test apparatus, one end of the test specimen is fixed. The displacement
is applied to the opposite end of the test specimen. A typical solid and mesh model of the test
specimen is shown in Fig.3.

Fig. 3. a)Test Specimen with boundary conditions b) Mesh model of the test specimen

Results and Discussions

The obtained Engineering stress- strain curves and the true stress-strain curves from the
experiment are shown in Fig. 4a and 4b respectively. The anisotropic behaviour was evidenced
from the both experimental curves. From the two curves it was observed that an orientation of 90°
gives a larger stress tendency, and the 0° specimen has a more ductile tendency compared to the 90°
specimen. The developed stress-plastic strain from the material’s tensile data obtained from
experiment shown in Fig.4c was used later in ABAQUS/Explicit software© for simulation.
372 Mechanical Engineering Design

100 Engg. stress Vs Engg. strain

140
TrueStress vs TrueStrain
80 120
Engg. Stress (MPa)

100

True Stress(MPa)
60

80

40
60
00
0
45 0
0
40
20 90 0 45 0
20 90 0
0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Engg. Strain True Strain

Fig. 4. a) Engineering stress vs Engineering Fig. 4. b) True stress vs True strain at

strain at different grain orientation different grain orientation
True Stress vs Eff. Plastic Strain Fitted Curves
160
160

140 140

120 120
True Stress(MPa)

True Stress(MPa)

100 100

80 80

60
60 Material test 00
40
Material test 00 fit
40 00 Material test 900
90 0 20 Material test 900 fit
20

0
0 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Effective Plastic Strain
Effective Plastic Strain

Fig. 4. c) Variation of plastic strain Fig. 4. d) Fitted curves

As the largest difference in response was noticed between the orientations of 0° and 90°, both
stress-strain curves at 0° and 90° were used to calibrate the material model for further calculations.
The tensile tests were only performed during constant temperature, so the temperature softening
parameter is assumed to be linear. To calibrate the strain hardening part of the modified Johnson-
Cook material model, Excel sheet was used. The fitted curves can be seen in Fig.4d and the
corresponding strain hardening parameters are shown in table 2.

Table 2. Modified Johnson-Cook material constants

Parameter A Q1 C1 Q2 C2 B n C
(MPa)
Orientation
0° 61.4 108.4 2.97 1.24 284.75 147.22 0.685 0.001
90° 53.55 131 2 4 283 141.1 0.71 0.001
The above modified Johnson-Cook material constant is later used for simulating the tensile
test in ABAQUS/Explicit©.
A quasi static loading was simulated by applying a prescribed displacement at one end of
the specimen, while constrained in the opposite end. The flow stress and failure of the simulated
specimen at the strain rate of 5mm/min is shown in Fig.5 Fig.6 showed the comparison between the
test results and simulation results for the model of the specimens. From Figures 5&6, it is clearly
seen that the test specimen has failed in the same region in both experiment and numerical
procedure. The numerical engineering stress- strain curve was plotted and compared with the
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 852 373

experimental data which is shown in Fig.7. The numerical stress-strain curves as well as the strain
to failure were in good agreement with the experimental data.

Fig. 5. Flow stress and failure of the simulated specimen at strain rate of 5mm/min

Fig. 6. Comparison of failure of specimen in experiment and numerical at 5mm/min strain

rate
Next, the numerical simulation of tensile loading at high strain rates was carried over a wide
range of strain rates up to 150 s-1 using the same numerical model. The modified JC material
constants discussed earlier were considered in the definition of material model.Fig. 8 shows the
stress–strain responses of the tensile specimen at various strain rates in comparison with those under
low strain rate loading. The flow stress and failure of the simulated specimen at the various strain
rates (50, 100, 150 s-1) is shown in Fig.9. The results clearly showed that strain rate had an effect on
both the stress and the strain to failure for the anisotropic materials. In general, it can be seen that
the dynamically obtained stress–strain response reveals higher ultimate strength but significantly
lower fracture strain than the quasi-statically derived response. A higher stress was observed for
dynamic tests, whereas the strains at the maximum stress are higher for the static experiments. It is
also interesting to note that the slope of the elastic portion of the curves during dynamic loading is
greater than that obtained quasi-statically. However, estimation of Young’s modulus from these
tests is not expected to give accurate results due to the wave reflections that occur within the elastic
zone, also an increase in the initial undamaged elastic modulus is observed for both tensile and
shears response with increasing strain rate. Simulation results for higher than tested strain rates are
also presented to illustrate the response at these high rates. It is shown that the tensile strength
increases with the increase in loading rate, and also a strain softening phenomenon is observed after
the maximum tensile strength. Finally, the simulation results presented in this work demonstrate
that the model can well predict the dynamic and the static response obtained from the experimental
measurements.
140
100
120
80
100
Engg.Stress(MPa)
Engg.Stress(MPa)

60 80

60
40
40
1.5e-3 s-1
20 Numerical 50 s-1
Experiment
20 100 s-1
150 s-1
0 0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Engg.Strain Engg.Strain

Fig. 7. Comparison of Engineering Fig. 8. Comparison of Engineering stress-Strain

stress-Strain at 5mm/min at low and high strain rates
374 Mechanical Engineering Design

@1.5e-3s-1(Quasi-static loading) @50 s-1

@100 s-1 @150 s-1

Fig. 9. Comparison of failure pattern of tensile specimen at different strain rates

Conclusion
The objective of this paper was to introduce a potential method for the determination of material
parameters of the Johnson-Cook constitutive equation for anisotropic aluminium sheet material
based on experimental investigation and numerical simulations. Nine specimens with three different
orientations 0, 45 & 90° made from aluminium sheets were tested to investigate the ductile and
failure characteristics of the material at low strain rate. Subsequently, corresponding finite element
models were built to simulate the ductile and failure behaviour of aluminium sheet at low and high
strain rates. Good agreement was found between numerical and experimental results which showed
that Finite Element Analysis using ABAQUS/Explicit© is the most similar representation of the
experimental analysis. The Johnson-Cook equation parameters were established using the numerical
simulation package ABAQUS/Explicit©. The parameters of the Johnson-Cook equation were
determined using an algorithm so that they represent the actual specimen contour from the physical
experiment as accurately as possible. The agreement of specimen shapes between physical
experiment and numerical simulation is ±5%.

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Mechanical Engineering Design
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.852

Experimental Prediction and Numerical Modeling of Ductile Damage and Failure Modeling of
Aluminium Sheet Metal Specimen
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.852.369