A generalized damage model accounting for instability and ductile fracture for sheet metals

With the requirement of vehicle performance and fuel economy, dual-phase (DP) steels as one of the advanced high stress steels (AHSS) are increasingly used in the automotive industry due to the excellent combination of the tensile strength and ductility. On a microscale the ductile fracture is governed by the void nucleation, growth and coalescence mechanism. In the dual-phase steels this damage mechanism exhibits a rather complex situation: voids are generated by the debonding of the hard phase from the matrix and the inner cracking of the hard phase besides by inclusions. On a macroscale fracture of these materials is observed in the automotive industry with the absence of strain localization or minimal post-necking deformation. Consequently the failure during the forming process is caused by a competitive or combined mechanism of internal damage evolution and metal instability. In this study, the target is to develop a simple and generalized model for metal forming processes accounting for instability, damage and ductile fracture. Theoretical predictions of metal instability by the Hill-Swift necking criterion and the modified maximum force criterion are considered. The damage model is developed by the combination of the prediction of metal instability and ductile fracture of sheet metals. The model is developed in 3D triaxial stress state and the accumulation of damage is stress state dependent. Furthermore, the influence of the hardening curve effected by damage on the forming limit curve is investigated.