An experimental and numerical study of the ductile fracture process for rolled homogeneous armour alloy steel

Abstract
This paper discusses the results of interrupted tensile tests conducted on high strength Rolled Homogeneous Armour (RHA) alloy steel specimens over a range of stress triaxiality conditions. The deformed specimens were sectioned and polished in order to detect the conditions required for the onset of void nucleation and coalescence prior to the final fracture. The results suggest that void nucleation and coalescence appear to have a strong relationship with the stress triaxiality conditions. Two fracture models have been assessed using input data based on experimental results. It has been found that these models do not completely represent the failure process for this material and therefore further refinements are necessary to obtain more accurate predictions.