Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

Modern automobile and airplane structures made of sheet metals or composites require usage of thinner and stronger materials. On the other hand, manufacturers are trying to reduce production costs by shortening the fabrication processes and by application of computed simulation for forming operation. Therefore, it is necessary to better understand and more accurately investigate deformation behaviour of sheet alloys. Testing of flat specimens under compression and cyclic tension-compression within large deformation procures a lot of problems. One of them is the buckling phenomenon. A new version of the device mounted in a standard testing machine was developed and geometry of the specimen for validation of the device was proposed. Specimens of DP690 steel with nominal thickness equal to 1.6 mm were investigated at ambient temperature. Tension-compression cyclic tests within a strain range ± 0.04 were executed starting in tension direction. It is shown that the results are repeatable.

Buckling, cyclic loading, fixture, thin sheets

Optimization of sheet metal forming processes requires a very good knowledge of material forming ability. During the forming of industrial parts, very complex strain paths are usually observed and can affect the formability of the sheet. Therefore, it is necessary to better understand and more accurately investigate deformation behaviour of sheet alloys. It should be noted that material testing of flat specimens under compression within a large deformation range procures many difficulties, and the buckling phenomenon seems to be the most im-portant. This paper shows the results of tension-compression tests carried out on specimens made of ultralight magnesium alloys AZ31B with nominal thickness equal to 1 mm using the anti-buckling fixture to avoid buckling problem.

Bauschinger effect, cyclic loading, buckling, fixture, thin sheet