Journal of Materials Processing Technology 210 (2010) 429436

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

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Determination of the ow stress of ve AHSS sheet materials (DP 600, DP 780, DP 780-CR, DP 780-HY and TRIP 780) using the uniaxial tensile and the biaxial Viscous Pressure Bulge (VPB) tests
A. Nasser, A. Yadav, P. Pathak, T. Altan
Engineering Research Center for Net Shape Manufacturing (ERC/NSM), The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA1

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Room temperature uniaxial tensile and biaxial Viscous Pressure Bulge (VPB) tests were conducted for ve Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) sheet materials, and the resulting ow stress curves were compared. Strain ratios (R-values) were also determined in the tensile test and used to correct the biaxial ow stress curves for anisotropy. The pressure vs. dome height raw data in the VPB test was extrapolated to the burst pressure to obtain the ow stress curve until fracture. Results of this work show that the ow stress data can be obtained to higher strain values under biaxial state of stress. Moreover, it was observed that some materials behave differently if subjected to different state of stress. These two conclusions, and the fact that the state of stress in actual stamping processes is almost always biaxial, suggest that the bulge test is a more suitable test for obtaining the ow stress of AHSS sheet materials for use as an input to Finite Element (FE) simulation models. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 23 April 2009 Received in revised form 30 September 2009 Accepted 6 October 2009

Keywords: AHSS Uniaxial tensile test Biaxial bulge test Flow stress Formability Dual Phase (DP) Transformation-Induced Plasticity (TRIP)

1. Introduction This study is concerned about two types of AHSS; Dual Phase (DP) steels and Transformation-Induced Plasticity (TRIP) steels. The microstructure of DP steels is composed of ferrite and martensite, while the microstructure of TRIP steels is a matrix of ferrite, in which martensite and/or bainite, and more than 5% retained austenite exist. The increased formability of AHSS is the main advantage over conventional HSS. DP steels, for example, have high initial strain hardening and a high tensile-to-yield strength ratio, which accounts for the relatively high ductility, compared to conventional HSS. This issue was pointed out (a) by ASTM (2007) which discusses the standard test methods for obtaining the tensile strain hardening components and (b) by ASTM (2006) that explains the test methods used for measuring the plastic strain ratio r for sheet metals. Nevertheless, compared to Draw Quality Steels (DQS), AHSS steels have relatively low ductility. In the stamping industry, running Finite Element (FE) simulations is an important

step in the process/tool design. A critical input to FE models is the mechanical properties (ow stress curve) of the sheet material used. Usually, ow stress curves are obtained using the uniaxial tensile test. Although accurate and convenient, two main limitations exist for this test. First, values of strain attained in this test are generally less than the values observed in stamping processes. As a result, data obtained in a tensile test, is usually extrapolated in conducting FE simulations. Second, the state of stress in actual stamping is usually biaxial, which raises questions on the suitability of using ow stress data obtained under a uniaxial loading condition. Based on these considerations, the biaxial bulge test was used extensively in the Engineering Research Center for Net Shape Manufacturing (ERC/NSM), for obtaining ow stress input to FE models. The ERC/NSM bulge test uses viscous material as the pressurizing medium. Therefore, it is called the Viscous Pressure Bulge (VPB) test. This test was originally developed by Gutscher and Altan (2004) and further developed to include anisotropy by Palaniswamy and Altan (2007).

Corresponding author at: Engineering Research Center for Net Shape Manufacturing (ERC/NSM), The Ohio State University, 339 Baker Systems Building, 1971 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. Tel.: +1 614 292 5063. E-mail address: altan.1@osu.edu (T. Altan). 1 www.ercnsm.org. 0924-0136/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2009.10.003

2. Background on the VPB test Fig. 1 is a schematic of the tooling used in the VPB test. The upper die is connected to the slide and the cushion pins support the lower die (the blank holder) to provide the required clamping force. The

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Fig. 1. Viscous Pressure Bulge (VPB) test tooling.

punch in the lower die is xed to the press table and therefore stationary. At the beginning, the tooling is open and the viscous material is lled into the area on the top of the punch. When the tooling closes, the sheet is totally clamped [Fig. 1(a)] between the upper and the lower dies using a lockbead to prevent any material draw-in in order to maintain the sheet in a pure stretching condition throughout the test. The clamping force (the selected press cushion force) depends on the material and thickness tested. The slide then moves down together with the upper die and blank holder. Consequently, the viscous medium is pressurized by the stationary punch and the sheet is bulged into the upper die. Since the tools are axisymmetric, the sheet is bulged under balanced biaxial stress. Continuously during the test, the dome height is measured using a potentiometer, and the bulging pressure is measured using a pressure transducer. Fig. 2 shows the details of the geometrical features of the VPB test tooling. All symbols used in this paper are summarized in the nomenclature, given at the end of the paper. 3. Inverse analysis methodology for determining the ow stress curve 3.1. Isotropic materials The methodology used for determining the ow stress of the sheet assumes that the material follows the Hollomon power law (Eq. (1)). n = K (1)

face area so that the bending stresses can be neglected as discussed by (Gutscher and Altan (2004) in detail. =
r

p 2

Rd +1 td td to

(2)

= t = ln

(3)

The effective stress and strain equations from the classical membrane plasticity theory are used (Eqs. (2) and (3)). These equations are derived under the assumptions that the bulge (dome) shape is spherical and that the sheet thickness is small compared to the sur-

In addition to the bulging pressure and dome height which can be easily measured in the test, Eqs. (2) and (3) above contain two other unknowns; the thickness and radius of curvature at the dome apex. To determine these unknowns, a series of FE simulations with different material properties (different n-value) were conducted using the commercial FE software PAMSTAMP to generate a database. This database shows how the thickness and radius of curvature at the dome apex change with the dome height. The VonMises yield criterion and the constitutive modeling of plasticity, outlined by (Hill, 1990) were used in the simulations. An excel macro was then developed to iteratively determine the ow stress curve of the material using both the database and the experimental pressure vs. dome height curve. A ow chart describing the FE-based inverse analysis methodology is shown in Fig. 3. An initial guess of the n-value is made. Using the measured dome height and the database, the radius of curvature and thickness at the dome apex are calculated. Now that all the information needed are available, the membrane theory equations can be used to calculate the effective stress and strain. The power law is then used to represent the resulting curve. Another iteration is performed with a different n-value, and the process continues until the difference in the n-value between two subsequent iterations becomes less than or equal to 0.001. At this moment, the iterations are stopped, and the ow stress curve is extracted and reported. 3.2. Anisotropic materials Since sheet materials are usually anisotropic (i.e. mechanical properties vary from one direction to another), the ow stress curve obtained in the bulge test may not be accurate if the material is assumed to be isotropic. Therefore in this study, the calculated ow stress curve using the methodology described in Section 3.1 was corrected for anisotropy. While Von-Mises yield criterion is used in the methodology described above, Hill (1990)s anisotropic yield criteria is used in this section. Following is the correction factor used to correct for anisotropy: anis = R90 + R0 R90 (R0 + 1) iso

(4)

Fig. 2. Geometrical features of the VPB test.

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431

Fig. 3. A ow chart describing the FE-based inverse analysis methodology used to determine the ow stress curve of sheet materials (Gutscher and Altan, 2004).

If the material does not have any planar anisotropy (i.e. R-value is the same in all directions), then Eq. (4) simplies to Eq. (5): anis = 2 + 1) iso R (5)

4. Objectives of the study The main objective of the study is to determine the ow stress curves of ve AHSS materials: DP 600, DP 780, DP 780-CR, DP 780HY, and TRIP 780. The detailed objectives are to: (1) Compare the ow stress curves obtained under balanced biaxial state of stress with those obtained under uniaxial condition (tensile test) for the materials tested. (2) Study the effect of anisotropy correction on the ow stress curves obtained by the VPB test. (3) Investigate the strain hardening characteristic and formability of the materials tested. 5. Experimental procedure 5.1. Tensile tests To eliminate edge effect problems associated with shearing operations, tensile test specimens were prepared by wire EDM process. For each of the ve AHSS materials (DP 600, DP 780, DP 780-CR, TRIP 780, and DP 780-HY), at least three samples were prepared at each of the three orientations (0 , 45 , and 90 ) with respect to the rolling direction. Specimen dimensions specied in the International Standard ASTM E 646-07 were used. MTS 810 FlexTest Material Testing Machine, 100 KN in capacity, was used for testing. A hydraulic wedge grips and a 2-in. Epsilon extensometer were used in all the tests. Samples were loaded at a strain rate of 0.1 min1 (1.67 103 s1 ) which is also according to the previously mentioned standard. Before starting the test, the specimen was properly aligned with the loading axis and gripped carefully to avoid twisting. Samples were loaded to an engineering strain of 8% (0.5%) where the test was stopped and the sample width was measured for the purpose of determining the Strain Ratio (only for DP 780-HY at 90 , the test was stopped at about 7% since this grade at this direction has less uniform elongation). A micrometer with a minimum division of 0.01 mm (0.005 mm) was used to measure the width at three locations within the gauge length (as recommended by the standard

ASTM E 646) and the average width was calculated. After measuring and recording the width, the sample is loaded again until failure. Throughout the test, both the load and the measured engineering strain were recorded to be used in calculating the true stress and strain. The test matrix is summarized in Table 1. The width true strain was calculated from the measured width. Using the axial true strain at which loading stops and the calculated width true strain, the thickness true strain was calculated from the principle of volume constancy (Eq. (6)). ax + w + t = 0 (6)

For each material, the strain ratio (R-value) in each direction was calculated, and then the average normal anisotropy and planar anisotropy were calculated. Formulas 7 through 9 were used in the calculations and the International Standard ASTM E 517-00, described in ASTM (2007) was followed. R= = R w t R0 + 2R45 + R90 4 R0 + R90 2R45 2 (7) (8) (9)

R=

Note: the ASTM standard E517 states that the plastic component of the total strain should be used in calculating the strain ratio. Subtracting the elastic strain from the total strain will not have a considerable effect on the R-values and therefore the total strain values were used in the calculations. The engineering stress, S, was calculated by dividing the measured load by the original cross sectional area (12.7 mm 1 mm). The following formulas were used to calculate the true stresstrue
Table 1 The test matrix used for the tensile and VPB tests. # Material Thickness Number of samples tested Tensile testa 0 1 2 3 4 5 DP 600 DP 780 DP 780-CR DP 780-HY TRIP 780 1 mm 1 mm 1 mm 1 mm 1 mm

VPB test 90 4 4 4 2 3

45 3 2 3 3 3

Total 6 10 7 7 7

Burst 1 4 1 2 2

3 3 4 3 3

a It was originally planned to test at least three samples for each condition. However, some samples were lost during the initial trials and therefore not included in this table.

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Fig. 7. Uniform and total elongation of various AHSS grades (gauge length: 2 in.) (average values are shown).

Fig. 4. Comparison of engineering stressengineering strain curves of various AHSS grades obtained by the tensile test.

Fig. 8. UTS and 0.2% offset yield strength of various AHSS grades (average UTS values are shown).

Fig. 5. Comparison of true stresstrue strain curves of various AHSS grades obtained by tensile test.

Fig. 9. Experimental pressure vs. time curve for sample 1 of TRIP 780 steel sheet material.

Fig. 6. True stresstrue strain curves of DP 780-HY at 0 , 45 , and 90 with respect to rolling direction obtained by tensile test.

strain data from the engineering data: (these formulas were used up to the instability/necking point) = ln(1 + e) = S (1 + e) (10) (11)

Table 2 Comparison of anisotropy ratios of various AHSS grades. 0 DP 600 DP 780 DP 780-CR TRIP 780 DP 780-HY 0.942 0.802 0.925 0.498 0.843 45 1.01 0.9 0.811 0.872 1.108 90 1.08 0.874 1.064 0.583 0.931 R 1.0105 0.869 0.90275 0.70625 0.9975 R 0.001 0.062 0.1835 0.3315 0.221

Fig. 10. Example tested specimens for TRIP 780 sheet material (a) sample burst and (b) sample not burst.

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Fig. 15. Comparison of true stressstrain curves of DP 600 determined by the tensile test and VPB test (curves are not extrapolated). Fig. 11. Experimental pressure vs. dome height curves obtained from the VPB test for the ve AHSS sheets materials tested (these curves are the measured curves without any extrapolation).

Fig. 16. Comparison of true stressstrain curves of DP 780 determined by the tensile test and VPB test (curves are not extrapolated).

Fig. 12. Comparison of the ow stress curves of the ve AHSS materials tested using the VPB test (these curves are neither corrected for anisotropy nor extrapolated).

Fig. 17. Comparison of true stressstrain curves of DP 780-CR determined by the tensile test and VPB test (curves are not extrapolated).

5.2. VPB tests

Fig. 13. Pressure vs. dome height curve (for TRIP 780, sample 6) extrapolated from last measured datapoint (212 bars) up to burst pressure (226 bars) using higher order polynomial approximation.

For each of the ve AHSS materials, at least six 10 in. 10 in. square samples were sheared. All samples are 1 mm thick and were prepared from the same sheets from which tensile testing

Fig. 14. The ow stress curve of TRIP 780 (sample 6) obtained from both experimentally measured and extrapolated pressure vs. dome height curves.

Fig. 18. Comparison of true stressstrain curves of TRIP 780 determined by the tensile test and VPB test (curves are not extrapolated).

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tion, UTS, and 0.2% offset yield strength of the ve AHSS tested by the tensile test. 6.2. VPB test Fig. 9 shows a sample pressure vs. time curve for TRIP 780 from which the burst pressure was obtained. The burst pressure was about 225 bars for sample 1 and 226 bars for sample 2. Fig. 10 shows a picture of a burst sample (a) and a sample bulged but not burst (b) for TRIP 780. Since a large clamping force (100 metric tons) was used, no material draw-in was observed in all tests. Fig. 11 shows a comparison of the experimental pressure vs. dome height curves of the ve AHSS materials obtained by the VPB test. The corresponding ow stress curves are compared in Fig. 12. The curves of both DP 600 and DP 780-HY were obtained up to bursting since a sample accidently burst during the test. As an example of experimental data extrapolation to the burst pressure, Fig. 13 shows the pressure vs. dome height curve of TRIP 780 (sample 6) with and without extrapolation. Fig. 14 shows the ow stress curve of TRIP 780 (sample 6) obtained from both experimentally measured and extrapolated pressure vs. dome height curves. 6.3. Comparison of tensile and VPB tests Figs. 1519 show the comparison of the ow stress curves determined by the tensile and VPB tests for the ve AHSS materials tested. Table 3 shows the comparison of the K and n-values obtained from the two tests. 7. Discussion and conclusions 7.1. Tensile tests Fig. 4 shows that the engineering stressstrain curves of the ve AHSS grades tested become almost at around the UTS for a wide strain range, making it difcult to visually identify the instability point (the UTS and uniform elongation). Thus, these values that are clearly identied for low carbon steels are difcult to determine for AHSS. As seen in Figs. 7 and 8, DP 600 has the highest post-uniform elongation (about 10%). Although DP 780-HY has the lowest uniform elongation, it has the second highest post-uniform elongation of about 9.5%. As seen in Table 2, DP 600 has the highest average anisotropy ratio (strain ratio) of about 1.01, while TRIP 780 has the lowest value (about 0.7). TRIP 780 has the highest planar anisotropy ( R) of about 0.33, while DP 600 has the lowest value (about 0.001). Thus, non-uniform ow in the ange region (earing) when forming TRIP 780 sheet can be an issue. One of the problems faced during tensile testing is that necking and failure for some materials at certain orientations occurred outside the gauge length. This was the case for some samples of DP 780 at 45 and 90 , TRIP 780 at 45 , and both DP 780-CR and DP 780-HY in all orientations. Since deformation is uniform before the instability point and since the presented true stresstrue strain curves are plotted up to this point, the data obtained from these samples was not discarded. For TRIP steels, strain hardening at the beginning takes place by the interaction of dislocations with second phases existing in the matrix as discussed by (Shaw and Zuidema, 2001). Later, when the material starts to loose its hardening characteristics, the retained austenite transforms to martensite (the strain at which phase transformation takes place depends mainly on the amount of carbon in the alloy). As a result, the alloy retains it hardening characteristic, which explains the delayed necking of TRIP 780 in uniaxial tensile test as compared to other DP steels with the same UTS (see Figs. 5 and 7). It can be seen from Figs. 4 and 5 that the ow stress curves of TRIP 780 have relatively low slope

Fig. 19. Comparison of true stressstrain curves of DP 780-HY determined by the tensile test and VPB test (curves are not extrapolated).

coupons were prepared. Minster Tranemo DPA-160-10 hydraulic press, 160 metric tons in capacity, was used for the test. Honeywell (S-model) pressure transducer and ETI (LCP 12 S-100 mm) potentiometer were used to measure the bulging pressure and dome height, respectively. National Instrument (SCXI) Data Acquisition System (hardware: SCXI-1000 and software SCXI-1520) was used to collect the data. Measuring devices were calibrated before the test to ensure accurate measurements. The clamping force was set to 100 metric tons to ensure no draw-in of the sheet material in the die cavity. The die cavity diameter of bulge test tools available at the ERC/NSM is 4.161 in (105.7 mm) and the die corner radius is 0.25 in. (6.35 mm). The potentiometer used is a delicate device and cannot withstand impact loading at the burst of the specimen. Thus, for each material, at least one sample was burst without a potentiometer to know the bursting pressure. To avoid bursting the other samples, they were pressurized to 9095% of the burst pressure while the potentiometer was used to measure the bulge height. Pressure vs. dome height raw data, sheet thickness, and strain ratios at 0 and 90 were used as inputs to the excel macro (see Section 3) to calculate the ow stress curve. To obtain the ow stress curve assuming the material is isotropic, value of one was used for both R0 and R90 . Since it is not possible to obtain experimental data up to the burst pressure, and in order to get a rough estimate of the material formability under balanced biaxial condition, the data was extrapolated to the burst pressure using a higher order polynomial approximation. The extrapolated curve was then used in the excel macro to obtain the ow stress curve. The dome height of the burst samples can be used as a measure of material formability under balanced biaxial condition. However, since the main objective of the study was not to evaluate the formability, the number of samples burst and measured was not sufcient from the repeatability point of view. Thus, these results are not presented in this paper. Table 1 summarizes the test matrix for both the tensile and the VPB tests. 6. Results 6.1. Tensile test Figs. 4 and 5 show a comparison of the engineering and true stressstrain curves obtained by the tensile test, respectively. No considerable variation of the ow stress curves between different samples orientations was observed. Thus the ow stress curves for all materials and orientations are not presented. As an example, the true stresstrue strain curves of DP 780-HY for the three orientations are shown in Fig. 6. Table 2 summarizes the strain ratios of the ve AHSS materials in the three orientations, as well as, the average strain ratio and planar anisotropy. Figs. 7 and 8 compare the average values (0 , 45 , and 90 ) for the uniform elongation, total elonga-

A. Nasser et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 210 (2010) 429436 Table 3 Comparison of the K and n-values obtained using both the tensile and VPB tests for the ve AHSS materials. Material Tensile test K (MPa) DP 600 DP 780 DP 780-CR DP 780-HY TRIP 780
a b

435

Bulge test (w/o correcting for anisotropy) n

a

2b

K (MPa) 1056 1382 1437 1220 1454

nc 0.167 0.116 0.155 0.097 0.183

R2 b 0.9816 0.9613 0.9701 0.9544 0.9755

952 1541 1436 1332 1444

0.175 0.188 0.187 0.142 0.208

0.9975 0.9877 0.9736 0.9882 0.9934

The n-value in the tensile test was obtained by tting the power law in the range from the 0.2% offset yield point to the instability point. R2 is the square of the correlation coefcient. c The n-value in the VPB test was obtained by tting the power law in the strain range from about 0.04 to the last datapoint available without extrapolation (note that the range in which the curve is t affects the t parameters).

at lower strains compared to other grades with the same UTS. Still, this alloy has the largest values of both uniform and total elongation. This maybe attributed to the transformation mentioned above. Shaw and Zuidema (2001) reported that the austenite-tomartensite transformation of TRIP steels is easier under biaxial tension than under compression. Thus, if used in drawing applications, TRIP steels shows relatively good performance since the transformation strengthens the side wall, while the ange region stays soft and easy to draw. 7.2. Bulge tests Figs. 13 and 14 show how much ow stress data is lost when ending the test at a pressure value slightly below the burst pressure. Moreover, these gures illustrate the high strain values which can be attained under balanced biaxial condition. The burst pressures in the VPB test for the ve AHSS materials are shown in Fig. 20. The dome height at fracture (bursting) in the VPB test can be used as a measure of formability and therefore used as a quick and reliable acceptance test of incoming raw material in the stamping plant. However, not many samples were burst in this study so that burst height cannot be considered to be reliable in describing and/or comparing the formability of the different AHSS grades tested. The negligible variation in the dome height vs. pressure curves, and corresponding ow stress curves, among different samples of the same material, indicate the consistency in their deformation behavior. 7.3. Comparison of tensile and VPB tests For all materials, the stress levels obtained from the tensile test is lower than the levels obtained from the VPB test. Depending on R0

Fig. 20. Burst pressure of the ve AHSS materials tested.

and R90 , the corrected ow stress may increase, decrease, or stay the same. It can be seen from Figs. 1519 that there is almost no difference between the anisotropy-corrected and uncorrected ow stress curves for both DP 780 and DP 780-HY, while the biggest difference is for TRIP 780. This illustrates how correcting for anisotropy may be important for some materials. Table 4 compares the stress levels in the tensile test and the bulge test at a true strain value which corresponds to the instability point in the tensile test. This particular point was selected for comparison because the difference in the stress level between the two tests reaches it maximum at this point. It can be seen that the percentage difference in stress level between the VPB and the tensile tests can be as high as 17% as is the case for TRIP 780. Theoretically speaking, the effective strain at instability under balanced biaxial loading is twice the instability strain under uniax-

Table 4 Comparison between the stress levels in the tensile and VPB tests at a strain values equal to the true strain at the onset of necking in the tensile test. DP 600 True strain at instability (in the tensile test) Maximum true stress level obtained in the tensile test (MPa) True stress level in VPB test (MPa) (at a strain value equals to the instability strain in the tensile test) Maximum percent difference between tensile test and bulge test 0.154 681 747 DP 780 0.84 946 1062 DP780-CR 0.10 904 979 TRIP 780 0.138 935 1094 DP 780-HY 0.765 911 956

9.7%

12.3%

8.3%

17%

4.9%

Table 5 Comparison between the maximum true strain that can be obtained in the tensile test and that obtained in the VPB test. DP 600 Maximum true strain that can be obtained in tensile test (at instability point) Maximum true strain obtained in the bulge test (without extrapolation) Percent difference 0.154 0.545 254% DP 780 0.84 0.356 324% DP780-CR 0.10 0.237 137% TRIP 780 0.138 0.258 88% DP 780-HY 0.765 0.508 564%

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ial loading. It can be seen from Table 5 that data in the bulge test can be collected up to a very high strain values compared to the tensile test. This is an advantage of the bulge test, especially if the ow stress data is to be used for FE simulation, since no extrapolations is needed as is the case when using tensile data. Although we expect the percent difference to be about 200% (should be 100%), we can see that it can be as low as 88% (for TRIP 780) and as high as 564% (for DP 780-HY). This emphasizes the importance of the bulge test because of its capability to provide data for a bigger range of strain compared to the traditional tensile test. In addition, some materials may behave differently (especially from the formability point of view) under different loading conditions. DP 780-HY is an obvious example. 7.4. Future work In addition to the inverse analysis methodology used in this paper, a new optimization methodology to determine the ow stress of sheet materials, tested by the bulge test, was developed at the ERC/NSM. The new methodology uses the commercially available FE software LS-DYNA, and the optimization tool LS-OPT, and is still based on the idea of inverse analysis. However, the membrane theory equations used in the current methodology which assumes the bulge shape to be spherical are not used in the new methodology. In addition, the need to have the FE-based database prior to the analysis is eliminated. This new methodology was proven to work well for room temperature bulge test, and it is still under development for elevated temperature to provide reliable data for warm sheet forming of light-weight materials such aluminum and magnesium alloys. Nomenclature

R R R0 R90 Rc Rd to td

average strain ratio planer anisotropy strain ratio in the rolling direction strain ratio in the transverse direction die corner radius radius of curvature at dome apex initial sheet thickness thickness at dome apex

Greek letters effective strain ax or true strain in axial direction (tensile test) t true strain in thickness direction (tensile test) w true strain in width direction (tensile test) true stress in axial direction (tensile test) effective stress 1 and 2 principal stresses in the sheet surface effective stress corrected for anisotropy anis iso effective stress not corrected for anisotropy stress in the radial direction r Acknowledgements The Engineering Research Center for Net Shape ManufacturingERC/NSM (www.ercnsm.org) gratefully acknowledges the Auto-Steel Partnership (A/S P) for sponsoring this study and United States Steels for providing the AHSS test materials. Special thanks to Mike Bzdok of A/S P and Ming Chen of USS for their support and valuable feedback. References
ASTM Committee E28/Subcommittee E28.02, 2007. Standard Test Method for Tensile Strain-Hardening Exponents (n-Values) of Metallic Sheet Materials, ASTM E646-07. ASTM Committee E28/Subcommittee E28.02, 2006. Standard Test Method for Plastic Strain Ratio r for Sheet Metal, ASTM E517-00. Gutscher, G., Altan, T., 2004. Flow stress determination using viscous pressure bulge (VPB) test. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 146 (1), 116123. Hill, R., 1990. Constitutive modeling of orthotropic plasticity in sheet metals. Journal of Mechanical Physics of Solids 38, 405417. Palaniswamy, H., Altan, T., 2007. Process simulation and optimization in metal formingselected examples and challenges. Steel Research International 78, 733. Shaw, J., Zuidema, B., 2001. New High Strength Steels Help Automakers Reach Future Goals for Safety, Affordability, Fuel Efciency and Environmental Responsibility, SAE 2001-01-3041.

dc e Fc hd K n p S R

diameter of die cavity engineering strain in axial direction (tensile test) clamping force dome height strength coefcient strain hardening exponent bulging pressure engineering stress in axial direction (tensile test) strain ratio (plastic anisotropy or normal anisotropy)