THE EFFECT OF STRAIN RATE ON

TENSILE PROPERTIES AND FRACTURE STRAIN

Gang Huang, Benda Yan and Hong Zhu
ArcelorMittal USA LLC

www.autosteel.org
 Outline

• Background
• Purpose of the work
• Materials tested
• Results
– Strain rate effect on tensile properties
– Strain rate effect on fracture strain
• Conclusions

www.autosteel.org
 Background

• Effect of strain rate on tensile properties and fracture behavior

is of critical importance to crash performance.
• There are two major issues for tensile testing at high strain
rates
– Severe load oscillation deteriorates quality of stress-strain
curve
– Existing strain measurement devices (strain gage, LVDT, or
Doppler extensometer) are not accurate and reliable at high
strain rates
• Data on the effect of strain rate on tensile properties/fracture
strain is scarce due to testing difficulties

www.autosteel.org
 Purpose of Work

• Improve data quality of high strain rate tests by

using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique
• Understand strain rate effect on fracture strain
using DIC
– Tensile fracture
– Cut edge fracture

www.autosteel.org
 Experiment

• Tensile test at high strain rate

– MTS servo-hydraulic testing machine
• 20kip load capacity
• Maximum speed 5.5 m/s
• 3-point bending of hat section beam
– Quasi-static: 100kip MTS testing machine
– Dynamic: drop tower mass 380 kg, speed 8m/s
Time t
• Digital Image Correlation (DIC) Time t +
Δt
– Full field non-contact Time t +
2Δt
deformation measurement
– Accurate output of
displacement and strain

www.autosteel.org
 High Strain Rate Test

Light source Load washer

High speed camera

Image acquisition

Slack adapter
Data acquisition

High strain rate test with DIC system

www.autosteel.org
 High Strain Rate Test
Load cell

Piezoelectric
load washer

Strain gauge for

Specimen Top and bottom load measurement
fixtures
Random speckles for
strain measurement

Slack adapter

Actuator

Schematic of testing setup High strain rate specimen

www.autosteel.org
 High Strain Rate Test – Load Signal Improvement

9000 Load cell

5000 Load cell
Load washer Load washer
Improvement with strain gage 8000 Improvement with strain gauge

4000 7000

6000

Load (N)
Load (N)

3000 Strain rate: 540/s

5000

4000
2000
Strain rate: 226/s 3000

2000
1000

1000

0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Displacement (mm) Displacement (mm)

Load-displacement curves Load-displacement curves

of DP590 at 220/s of DP780 at 550/s

www.autosteel.org
 Materials

Tensile Properties
Yield Tensile Uniform Total Local
Thickness
Material Coating Strength Strength Elongation Elongation Fracture strain
(mm)
(MPa) (MPa) (%) (%) (%)

EDDS 1.54 Uncoated 123 284 27.0 55.0 110

DP590 CR 1.4 Uncoated 347 612 17.0 28.0 73

590R 1.4 GA 485 618 14.3 22.1 66

DP780 1.4 EG 527 822 11.1 18.0 58
TRIP780 1.4 GA 503 892 15.0 21.3 46

DP980 1.4 Uncoated 636 1043 8.5 13.4 46

DP980 1.4 GA 645 1002 8.4 13.8 45

www.autosteel.org
 Stress-strain Curves

800

1000
700

600 800

Engineering stress (MPa)

Engineering stress (MPa)

500

DP590-0.02/s 600
400 DP780-0.008/s
DP590-1/s
DP590-10/s DP780-1/s
DP590-34/s DP780-10/s
300 400
DP590-226/s DP780-34/s
DP590-560/s DP780-231/s
200
DP780-540/s
200
100

0 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4

Engineering strain Engineering strain

Engineering stress-strain Engineering stress-strain

curves of DP590 curves of DP780

www.autosteel.org
 Stress-strain Curves

600

500
Engineering stress (MPa)

400

300

EDDS-0.02/s

200 EDDS-1/s
EDDS-10/s
EDDS-34/s
100 EDDS-138/s
EDDS-229/s
EDDS-570/s
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
Engineering strain

Engineering stress-strain curves of EDDS

www.autosteel.org
 Strain Rate Effect on Tensile Properties
Tensile properties of EDDS at different strain rates
Tensile properties 0.02 /s 1 /s 10 /s 34 /s 138 /s 229 /s 570 /s
UTS (MPa) 286 307 338 354 371 400 450
UE 0.271 0.251 0.2 0.214 0.233 0.217 0.195
TEL (5mm GL) 0.958 0.917 0.983 NA 0.942 0.9833 NA

Tensile properties of DP590 at different strain rates

Tensile properties 0.02 /s 1 /s 10 /s 34 /s 226 /s 560 /s
UTS (MPa) 630 660 672 690 696 723
UE 0.17 0.168 0.175 0.169 0.175 0.174
TEL (5mm GL) 0.547 0.467 0.517 0.55 0.517 0.533

Tensile properties of DP780 at different strain rates

Tensile properties 0.02 /s 1 /s 10 /s 34 /s 231 /s 540 /s
UTS (MPa) 820 833 857 862 867 880

UE 0.114 0.124 0.112 0.125 0.126 0.112

TEL (5mm GL) 0.408 0.4 0.392 0.4 0.4 0.417

www.autosteel.org
 Strain Rate Effect on Tensile Strength
900

Tensile strength (MPa) 800

700

EDDS
600
DP590 CR
DP780 EG
500

400

300

200
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Strain rate (1/s)

Relation between tensile strength and strain rate

www.autosteel.org
 Strain Rate Effect on Elongations

1.2

0.8
Elongation

Total EDDS-TEL
Elongation
0.6 DP590 CR-TEL
DP780 EG-TEL
EDDS-UE
0.4 DP590 CR-UE
DP780 EG-UE

0.2 Uniform
Elongation

0
0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Strain rate (1/s)

Uniform elongation and total elongation

with respect to strain rate

www.autosteel.org
 Strain Rate Effect on tensile fracture strain
Fracture strain of 5 materials at different strain rates

Quasi – Standard
Material 1/s 10/s 120/s 220/s 500/s
static deviation

EDDS 1.13 1.12 1.1 1.09 1.13 NA 0.018

DP590 CR 0.738 0.681 0.711 0.741 0.734 0.691 0.025
GA 590R 0.668 0.6295 0.661 0.6715 0.6446 0.5718 0.037
DP780 0.602 0.615 0.619 0.611 0.598 0.564 0.02
DP980 LC 0.4819 0.4762 0.4908 0.5202 0.5193 0.5174 0.02

An animation showing the

speckles change of GA
590R at 200/s
(camera speed 4000
frame/s)

www.autosteel.org
 Strain Rate Effect on fracture strain

1.6
EDDS
1.4 DP590 CR
590R GA
1.2 DP780 CR
DP980 EG
Fracture strain

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Strain rate (1/s)

www.autosteel.org
3-point Bending Beam Tests – Quasi-static

20
800
60
80

Test setup of quasi-static beam test and specimen

www.autosteel.org
3-point Bending Beam Tests – Dynamic

www.autosteel.org
 Strain Rate Effect on Edge fracture strain

Edge Fracture Strain

Material
Notch from water-jet cutting Notch from punching
Beam-dynamic* Beam- quasi-static Beam- dynamic* Beam- quasi-static
(~ 65/s) (~ 0.46/s) (~ 65/s) (~ 0.46/s)
DP980 CR 0.35 0.39 0.36 0.34
DP980 GA 0.28 0.32 0.3 0.29
TRIP 780 GA 0.38 0.37 0.27 0.2
GA 590R 0.45 0.57 0.45 0.5

*Note: The fracture strain of

dynamic beam was determined
using FEA combined with experiment
(fracture strain of quasi-static beam
was directly measured using DIC)

www.autosteel.org
 Conclusions

• Data quality of high strain rate testing is improved by

applying strain gauge in grip section and DIC technique.
• Strain rate has little effect on uniform elongation and total
elongation for Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) such
as DP590 and DP780.
• In agreement with existing data, the tensile strength
increases with strain rate.
• Strain rate exhibited insignificant effect on fracture strain
for the tested materials.
• DIC can be used as an effective tool in strain
measurement for plasticity and fracture studies for high
strength steels.

www.autosteel.org