Strain rate dependent tensile behavior of advanced high strength steels: Experiment and constitutive modeling

High strain rate tensile tests were conducted for three advanced high strength steels: DP780. DP980 and TRIP780. A high strain rate tensile test machine was used for applying the strain rate ranging from 0.1/s to 500/s. Details of the measured stress-strain responses were comparatively analyzed for the DP780 and TRIP780 steels which show similar microstructural feature and ultimate tensile strength, but different strengthening mechanisms. The experimental observations included: usual strain rate dependent plastic flow stress behavior in terms of the yield stress (YS), the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), the uniform elongation (CUE) and the total elongation (TE) which were observed for the three materials. But, higher strain hardening rate at early plastic strain under quasi-static condition than that of some increased strain rates was featured for TRIP780 steel, which might result from more active transformation during deformation with lower velocity. The uniform elongation that explains the onset of instability and the total elongation were larger in case of TRIP steel than the DP steel for the whole strain rate range, but interestingly the fracture strain measured by the reduction of area (RA) method showed that the TRIP steel has lower values than DP steel. The fractographs using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) at the fractured surfaces were analyzed to relate measured fracture strain and the microstructural difference of the two materials during the process of fracture under various strain rates. Finally, constitutive modeling for the plastic flow stresses under various strain rates was provided in this study. The proposed constitutive law could represent both Hollomon-like and Voce-like hardening laws and the ratio between the two hardening types was efficiently controlled as a function of strain rate. The new strength model was validated successfully under various strain rates for several grades of steels such as mild steels, DP780, TRIP780, DP980 steels. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.