Constitutive modelling of dual phase steel sheet and tube

Abstract
Automobile manufacturers are currently striving to improve vehicle fuel efficiency through reduction of vehicle weight. Dual phase steels are good candidates for automotive bodies due to their high strength-to-weight ratio, and good formablity and weldability. As part of a project on the interaction between forming and crashworthiness, constitutive parameters of a dual phase steel were determined for both sheet and tube stock in order to support analysis of the tube response throughout forming processes and in crash simulations. Stress - strain data was collected at a quasi-static rate as well as rates from 0.1 to 1500 s ^{- 1}. The intermediate strain rate response was captured using an instrumented falling weight tensile tester (35 – 100 s ^{- 1}), while a tensile split Hopkinson bar (500 – 1500 s ^{- 1}) was used to capture the high-rate response. This range of strain rates is typical of the rates seen in a crash simulation. Tests were also performed at higher temperatures (150°C and 300°C) at rates of 500 and 1500 s ^{- 1} to capture the thermal softening response.
The dual phase steel sheet and tube show an appreciable amount of strain rate sensitivity throughout the complete range of strain rates. It also exhibited a large amount of thermal softening. The thermal sensitivity is identical for the sheet and tube. Fits to the Johnson-Cook constitutive model were obtained from the experimental results.