Author’s Accepted Manuscript

Investigating of the tensile mechanical properties of

structural steels at high strain rates

A.R. Khalifeh, A.Dehghan Banaraki, H. Danesh

Manesh, M.Dehghan Banaraki

www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

PII: S0921-5093(17)31473-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2017.11.025
Reference: MSA35740
To appear in: Materials Science & Engineering A
Received date: 20 August 2017
Revised date: 30 October 2017
Accepted date: 8 November 2017
Cite this article as: A.R. Khalifeh, A.Dehghan Banaraki, H. Danesh Manesh and
M.Dehghan Banaraki, Investigating of the tensile mechanical properties of
structural steels at high strain rates, Materials Science & Engineering A,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2017.11.025
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Investigating of the tensile mechanical properties of structural steels at
high strain rates

A.R.Khalifeha, A.Dehghan Banarakia, H. Danesh Manesh, a, M.Dehghan Banarakib

a
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, Shiraz University of Technology,

Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

St37 and St52 structural steel plates were tested in uniaxial tension at room temperature over

various strain rates ranging from 0.001/s to 0.1/s. The yield stress, flow stress and fracture

behavior of steels were analyzed. It was found that the strain rate has a strong effect on the

tensile mechanical properties of St37 steel, while St52 has a less sensitive strain rate and that

the yield strength of both steels exhibits a higher strain sensitivity rate than the other

mechanical properties. An increase in the loading rate from 0.001/s to 0.1/s led to a %30

increase in the lower yield strength of St37 steel and an increase of %6 for St52. The

equations were derived to express the yield stress behavior with the strain rate. The ductile

dimple fracture was observed in static and dynamic conditions; however, increasing the strain

rate resulted in a pronounced cleavage-type fracture in both steels. The St37 fracture strain

decreased considerably by increasing the strain rate.

Keywords: Structural steels; High strain rates; Deformation behavior; Constitutive modeling

* Corresponding author. Tel. /fax: +98 713 2307293.

E-mail addresses: daneshma@shirazu.ac.ir (H.Danesh Manesh).
Tel.: +98 9173149475.

1
1. Introduction

Due to low cost, excellent reliability and compatibility with most manufacturing

techniques, steel is one of the most widely used industrial materials[1]. Steel is employed for

a wide variety of applications, including chemical and petrochemical plants, power

transmission components and structures[2, 3]. Steel products may encounter high-strain rate

deformation conditions during their production and service life [4-7]. Using the assumption

of rate-independent plastic deformation in classical plasticity theories may not be appropriate

in the design and construction of elements that made by these materials. The performance of

steel moment resisting frames during the 1994 Northridge and 1995 Kobe earthquakes raised

the negative impacts of high-loading rates on the mechanical behavior and highlighted

deficiencies associated with the design and construction of steel structures based on static

tensile tests[8-12].The steel structures high-stressed regions, as well as the deformed steel

bars and wires of reinforced concrete structures can receive a strain of 0.001/s to 0.1/s under

seismic and impulsive loads [13-15].In the presence of cracks and stress concentration points

strain rate can increase up to 1/s, being responsible for a considerable reduction in the

materials toughness [16].The steel yield stress and ultimate tensile strength, strains

corresponding to these stresses, and strain hardening rates will be affected by increasing the

strain rate [13, 17-20].Chang and lee revealed that the annealed A36 structural steel at room

temperature shows a 27% increase in lower yield stress under the loading rate of 0.01/s [15].

Investigations by Matos and Dodds demonstrated that this steel presents a 45% increase of

yield stress at a strain rate of 1/s and a 65% increase at a strain rate of 10/s[16].They found

that higher strength steel structures such as A572 present an increase of 40% in the yield

strength at the strain rate of 10/s[16].Stainless steel structures have been considered for

corrosive elements in chemical plants. The impact and fracture response of the AISI316L

stainless steel subjected to high strain loading were studied by Berling and Slot. Results

2
showed that the flow stress-strain response of the AISI316L stainless steel depends strongly

on the applied strain rate[21]. The brittle fracture mode was observed in 18Mn types of steels

by increasing in the strain rate of 0.27/s, which is unusual for austenitic stainless

steels[22].Lee and Lin indicated that the morphologies and characteristics of both dislocation

and microstructures of AISI304L are sensitive to the loading rates changes. They disclosed

that increasing the loading rate increases the density of dislocations, thereby increasing the

flow stress at a given strain rate[23].

In this study, the effects of static and earthquake-type dynamic loadings on the tensile

mechanical properties of a ductile structural steel, St37, and a higher strength grade, namely

St52 have been studied to compare their responses at the loading rates. The relation of the

combined power law constitutive model was selected to describe the material response to

strain rate variations. The fractography of the tested specimens under both static and dynamic

loading conditions have also been discussed. The topics could provide some important

insights on the structural applications of St37 and St52 steels under earthquake loading

conditions.

2. Experimental procedures

The St37 and St52 carbon steels investigated in the present study were received in

plate form with a thickness of 15 mm. Both steels were supplied by Isfahan’s Mobarake Steel

Company (Iran). The chemical composition of carbon steels has been presented in Table1.

The subsize tensile specimens with 25-mm gauge length were prepared from hot-rolled steel

plates using wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) processes according to the ASTM

E8 standard.

3
Table 1.The chemical composition of St37 and St52 steels.

Chemical composition (%wt)

Materials
Fe C Mn Ni Cr Mo Si P

St37 ball 130.0 13..0 <13110 13100 13110 13000 13100

St52 ball 13.10 03.0 <13110 1311. 13110 130.0 13100

The samples were cut in the longitudinal rolling direction for the evaluation of tensile

mechanical properties variation at the static and dynamic loadings. In order to analyze the

anisotropy of the steel plates, transverse tensile samples were also prepared for testing in the

static condition. The surfaces of each specimen were polished by sand papers and any

WEDM-induced defects were removed from the surfaces in order to eliminate any potential

source of stress concentrations during the testing processes. In order to ensure the reliability

of the test results, three specimens of each steel were tested for each strain rate condition. The

Static[24] and earthquakes-type dynamic loading [14, 15] ranging from 0.001/s to 0.1/s were

conducted using a servo hydraulic testing machine with a 25 kN maximum load capacity

(Instron8800). Microstructural evaluations were done utilizing an optical microscopy after

polishing and etching samples with a 2% Nital solution. Scanning electron microscopy, SEM,

was used for the fractography observation of the failed specimens.

3. Results

3.1. Metallographic examination

The microstructures of the steels in the longitudinal rolling direction were

characterized by optical microscopy, as can be seen in Fig. 1. Ferrites and pearlites are

apparent in both St37 and St52 steels microstructures. Fig. 1a shows the optical micrograph

of St37 carbon steel. As can be seen, the microstructure of the St37 low-carbon steel contains

4
approximately 90 vol. % ferrite and 10 vol. % pearlite. The average grain size is

approximately 42μm.The coarse grains produced due to hot working processes can be seen in

the metallographic images. The optical micrograph of St52 carbon steel has been shown in

Fig. 1b. The microstructure contains fine ferrite and pearlite grains, about %70 ferrite and

%30 pearlite, elongated in the direction of rolling processes. The finer grains in St52

microstructure are result of production processes [25]. The average grain size for St52 was

about 17μm. The percentage of pearlite was much greater than that in St52 steel with respect

to St37.

(a)

Ferrites
Pearlites
100 μm

(b)

Ferrites

Pearlites
100 μm

Rolling
direction

Fig. 1. The microstructure of (a) St37 and (b) St52 steel.

5
3.2. Mechanical Properties Evaluation

Representative the engineering stress-strain curves up to fracture at different strain

rates have been plotted in Fig. 2a to demonstrate the effect of the strain rate on the tensile

mechanical properties of St37 and St52 structural steels. The true stress and true strain were

computed based on the engineering stress, S, and engineering strain, e, of the tensile test as

follows:

0 (1)

0 (2)

These expressions are valid only in uniform deformation area of the engineering stress-strain

curves or until the onset of necking[26, 27]. The formation of a necked region introduces

triaxial stresses, making it difficult to determine the longitudinal tensile stress accurately [26].

Therefore, only this part of the true stress-strain curve has been considered, Fig.2b.The

average measured tensile properties have been summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. The yield strength, tensile strength, yield ratio, fracture strain of St37 and St52

structural steels at various strain rates.

Materials ̇ (1/s) Test Direction LYS/UTS

Longitudinal 240 235 387 0.61 1.12

0.001
Transverse 252 249 393 0.63 1.06
St37
0.01 … 266 252 401 0.63 1.05

0.1 … 350 306 422 0.73 0.88

Longitudinal 392 390 613 0.64 0.92

0.001
Transverse 410 .90 0.0 0.63 0.90
St52
0.01 … 398 395 614 0.64 0.86

0.1 … 450 413 627 0.66 0.81

6
 700
(a)
600

500

Stress,MPa
400

300
St52,0.1/s
St52,0.01/s
200
St52,0.001/s
St37,0.1/s
100 St37,0.01/s
St37,0.001/s
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Strain

800
(b)
700

600
True stress,MPa

500

400

300 St52,0.1/s
St52,0.01/s
St52,0.001/s
200
St37,0.1/s
St37,0.01/s
100 St37,0.001/s

0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3
True strain

Fig. 2. The engineering (a) and true (b) stress-strain curve of St37 and St52 at different strain
rates.

3.2.1. Mechanical properties in the static condition ( ̇ =0.001/s)

Almost all samples show the yield-point phenomenon in which the material exhibits a

characteristic drop in the stress-strain curve at the end of the elastic region. The upper yield

strength, UYS, the lower yield strength, LYS, and the ultimate tensile strength, UTS, for St37

in the static loading were 240 MPa, 235MPa and 387MPa, respectively. The yield

7
ratio LYS/UTS) was 0.61. The values of UYS, LYS and UTS for St52 steel were obtained as

392, 390 and 613MPa which are 63%, 66% and 58% higher than those for St37 steel,

respectively. The yield ratio for St52 was computed as 0.64, which is higher than the value

obtained for St37 steel. The higher yield ratio of St52 permits more reliable design of steel

structures[2]. The static yield drops for St37 and St52 steels were observed as 2% and 0.5%,

respectively. The relative yield drop was followed by a region of almost constant nominal

stress with some fluctuations. Within this region of nearly constant stress, the plastic

deformations take place locally in deformation bands or Lüdders band. The Lüdders band

dimension is not noticeable in the static condition. The uniform elongation starts at the end of

the Lüdders bands and continues up to the ultimate strength. The stress related to this region

is known as flow stress which is higher in all ranges of strains for St52 than St37 steel.

Necking started after the and during a non-uniform elongation region continued up to

the breaking point or fracture strain. The fracture strain was determined by direct

measurement of the initial cross-sectional area and cross-sectional area at the fracture surface

of the specimens. The true fracture strain was calculated as[27]:

⁄ (3)

where is the true strain at fracture, and are the initial area and area at the fracture,

respectively.

The obtained results have been presented in Table 2. As can be seen, the fracture

strain for St52 steel is smaller than St37 in static condition.

In order to evaluate the anisotropy of the rolled-plate products, the tensile tests were

also done on the transverse rolling specimens. Data on the transverse tensile test for St37 and

St52 steels in the static condition has been given in Table 2. The results show no significant

difference between UYS, LYS and UTS of transverse and longitudinal specimens.

8
3.2.2. Influence of dynamic loadings on mechanical properties

Fig.2 shows the engineering and true stress-strain curves obtained for St37 and St52

steels at three strain rates of 0.001/s, 0.01/s and 0.1/s. The results reveal that these steels

follow the same general trend. By increasing strain rate, the yield point, tensile strength and

flow stress of the steels increase. The most dramatic changes are evident in the yields points.

For the clarification of this phenomenon, the variation of LYS and UYS of St37 and St52

carbon steels at different strain rates from 0.001/s to 0.1/s have been compared in Fig.3.

Increasing the LYS and UYS of both steels by increasing the strain rate is clearly visible. It

can be seen in Fig.3, that the effects of the strain rate on the LYS of St37 are more

considerable than those of St52 steel. Considering this figure, the sharpest variation for both

steels is seen at the strain rate of 0.1/s in which the LYS of St37 and St52 presents a 30% and

a 6%increase, respectively.

Another way to express the effect of the strain rate on the yield behavior of structural

steels is the ratio of the yield strength in the dynamic-to-static condition. The ratio of

⁄ for St37 and St52 steels at different strain rates has been plotted in Fig. 4.

The results revealed that the lower strength material (St37) has more strain rate sensitivity

than the higher strength grade (St52). The equations which are useful for the predicting of the

LYS of steels over dynamic loadings extracted through the fitting of the power law equation

on the tensile tests data at different strain rates:

For St37 steel:

⁄ ..310 ̇ 2 -031059 ̇ + 1.0000 (4)

And for St52 steel:

⁄ = 0.3931 ̇ 2 + 0.3924 ̇ + 1.0057 (5)

9
In which and denotes dynamic and static lower yield stress at room

temperature respectively, and ̇ refers to the test strain rate.

The strain rate effects on UYS of St37 and St52 steels have been plotted in Fig.3. The

variations for UYS with the strain rate are more noticeable and show a 46% increase for St37

at the loading rate of 0.1/s. Increasing UYS for St52 is much lower and only 15% increase

was observed during the dynamic loading of 0.1/s. The upper yield point is sensitive to

alignment of the specimens in the tensile test [28]and therefore the lower yield point is a

more important factor in the design and construction of steel structures.

700

600

500
Stress(MPa)

400

300

200 UTS St52

UYS St52
UTS St37
100 LYS St52
UYS St37
LYS St37
0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
Strain rate(1/s)

Fig. 3. The variation of LYS, UYS and UTS of St37 and St52 steels by the strain rate.

10
 1.40

1.30

LYS(dynamic)/LYS(static)
1.20

1.10

1.00
St37

0.90 St52

0.80

0.70
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
Strain rate(1/s)

Fig. 4. The effects of strain rate on the lower yield stress of St37 and St52 steels.

The variation of UTS for St37 and St52 steel with the strain rate has been shown in

Fig.3. Increasing in UTS is seen by increasing the strain rate but the amount of variations is

not as considerable as that of LYS. UTS increases by 9% and 2% for St37 and St52,

respectively by increasing the strain rate from 0.001/s to 0.1/s. Considering the results, the

UTS has a less strain rate sensitivity than the yield strength for both steels.

Results on the yield ratio in dynamic conditions for St37 and St52 steels have been

given in Table2. It can be seen from the datas that by increasing the strain rate from 0.001/s

to 0.1/s the yield ratio increases from 0.61 to 0.73 and from 0.64 to 0.66 for St37 and St52

steels, respectively. The effects of strain rate on the yield ratio of St37 steel are more

considerable than those related to St52.

3.2.3 The effect of the strain rate on flow stress

Fig.2b shows the true stress-strain curves of St37and St52 steels at different strain

rates. The graph reveals that the flow stress of St37 steel is strongly dependent on the strain

11
rate during the tensile processes, while St52 has less strain rate sensitivity. The flow stress of

both steels increases by increasing the strain rate. The uniform ductility for St37 is similar in

all loading conditions. This is the balance of the higher work hardening rate and Lüdering at

higher strain rates. Higher work hardening tends to increase the uniform ductility, whereas

extended Lüdering reduces the uniform elongation. For St52 increasing in strain rate results

in reduction of uniform elongation. Lüdering is not considerable for St52 steel.

A suitable constitutive equation, capable of accurately describing the flow behavior of

materials, is a suitable tool for the engineering design of steel structures. Thus, the combined

power law constitutive equation fitted on the tensile test data of the St37 and St52 structural

steels toward the strain rate as follows [27]:

̇m (6)

where and are the true stress and true plastic strain, respectively, n is the strain

hardening exponent, is the strength coefficient, ̇ is the strain rate and m is the strain rate

sensitivity.

A linear least-squares curve fitting scheme was used to determine constants from the

tensile tests, as can be observed in Fig.5. and n values of St37 steel for this equation are

870 and 0.3 and those for St52 are1300 and 0.29, respectively. The strain rate sensitivity, m,

of the tested specimens was calculated from the true stress-strain curves at the strain of 0.15.

Fig.6 shows a log–log plot of the stress versus strain rate. The slopes of the linear fits give

m = 0.021 and m=0.015 for the St37 and St52 steels, respectively.

The comparisons of model fitted to tests data and experiments at three strain rates of

0.001/s, 0.01/s and 0.1/s have been shown in Fig.7 for St37 and those for St52 in Fig.8. The

results reveal good agreement between experiments and the constitutive power law model for

St37 and St52 steels. Maximum error observed is less than 5 percent.

12
 6.7
R² = 1.00
6.5

6.3

Ln true stress
R² = 1.00

6.1

5.9 St52
St37
5.7 Linear (St52)
Linear (St37)
5.5
-3.5 -3.2 -2.9 -2.6 -2.3 -2 -1.7 -1.4
Ln true strain

Fig. 5. The linear least-squares curve fitting scheme to determine K and n values for St37 and
St52 steels.

6.7
R² = 0.9953
6.6

6.5
St52
6.4 St37
Ln stress

Linear (St52)
6.3
Linear (St37)
6.2

6.1 R² = 0.9149

5.9
-7.5 -6.5 -5.5 -4.5 -3.5 -2.5
Ln(strain rate)

Fig. 6. The log–log plot of stress versus strain rate (m extracted equal 0.021 and 0.015 at
strain of 0.15 for St37 and St52, respectively).

13
 600 600
(a) St37, 𝜀 ̇=0.001/s (b) St37, 𝜀 ̇=0.01/s
500 500

Stress(MPa) 400

Stress(MPa)
400

300 300
Experiment Experiment
200 Model 200 Model

100 100

0 0
0.02 0.07 0.12 0.17 0.22 0.27 0.02 0.07 0.12 0.17 0.22 0.27
Strain Strain

600
(c) St37, 𝜀 ̇=0.1/s
500
Stress(MPa)

400

300
Experiment
Model
200

100

0
0.02 0.07 0.12 0.17 0.22 0.27
Strain

Fig. 7. Comparison between experiments and the combined power law model at (a) strain
rate= 0.001/s, (b) strain rate=0.01/s and (c) strain rate=0.1/s for St37 steel.
900 900
(a) St52, 𝜀 ̇=0.001/s (b) St52, 𝜀 ̇=0.01/s
800 800
700 700
600
Stress(MPa)
Stress(MPa)

600
500 500
400 Experiment 400 Experiment
300 Model 300 Model
200 200
100 100
0 0
0.02 0.07 0.12 0.17 0.22 0.27 0.02 0.07 0.12 0.17 0.22 0.27
Strain Strain

900
800
(c) St52, 𝜀 ̇=0.1/s
700
Stress(MPa)

600
500
400 Experiment
Model
300
200
100
0
0.02 0.07 0.12 0.17 0.22 0.27
Strain

Fig.8. Comparison between experiments and the combined power law model at (a) strain
rate= 0.001/s, (b) strain rate=0.01/s and (c) strain rate=0.1/s for St52 steel.

14
3.2.4. The effect of the strain rate on fracture behavior

The macroscopic images of the failed tensile specimens of St37 and St52, were tested

at three strain rates of 0.001/s, 0.01/s and 0.1/s, have been shown in Fig.9a-f. Fracture in all

specimens is preceded by a localized reduction in the cross-section that called necking. The

longer crack path in the static condition, Fig. 9a and 9d, and the shorter crack path during the

dynamic loading scenario, Fig.9c and 9f for St52 and St37 were seen, respectively. These

results depict that the damage of these structural steels depends on the loading rate.

The fracture surfaces of specimens failed at three strain rates of 0.001/s, 0.01/s and

0.1/s are shown in Fig.9g-i and Fig.9j-l for St37 and St52, respectively. Considering these

figures, it is obvious that by increasing the strain rate the fracture surfaces of specimens of

both steels were increased. The fracture strain at different strain rates computed based on

the initial cross-section and fracture surfaces at necking using Equ.3. The obtained

results are given in Table 2. The fracture strain decreases from 1.12 to 0.88 and from 0.92 to

0.81 for St52 steel by increasing the strain rate from 0.001/s to 0.1/s.

The SEM fracture surfaces of three samples of St37 and St52 at three different strain

rates have been shown in Fig.10. As can be observed, the ductile fracture with small and

elongated dimples take place in the St37 specimens deformed by the strain rates of 0.001/s

and 0.01/s (Fig.10a and10b). During the low strain rate loading, the microvoids were

nucleated at the center of the neck, elongated under continued straining and coalesced to form

a central crack[29]. This crack grows in a direction perpendicular to the axis of the specimen

until it approaches the surface of the specimen [26]. Fig.10c shows the fracture surface of the

specimen loaded at the 0.1/s strain rate. Larger dimples and cleavage-type fracture surfaces

are evident on the fracture surfaces. These results demonstrate that the fracture mode of St37

steel is highly sensitive to the strain rate. Fig.10 (d-f) shows the fracture surfaces of St52 steel

at different strain rates from 0.001/s to 0.1/s. For this steel, the ductile dimple fracture occurs

15
due to tensile loadings; however, the amount of plastic deformation decreases by increasing

the strain rate. The SEM micrographs shows that as compared to St37 steel, the size of ductile

dimples of St52 becomes larger and narrower during all strain rates, Fig.10(a-c) versus

Fig.10(d-f). The micrographs depict that less plastic deformation take place in the tensile test

for this steel in comparison with St37 steel. Higher values of C and Mn in St52 steel improve

the tensile properties of St52, while this increase trend to cleavage-type fracture modes of the

steel[30].

Considering macroscopic observations, fracture strain calculation and fractography

by SEM, the ductility of both steels decreases with increasing the strain rate of tensile test.

The amount of this reduction is higher for St37, as compared to St52. The results demonstrate

that St37 is more ductile than St52 and the amount of absorbed energy in the static loading

scenario is higher than the dynamic loading condition for both types of steels.

Fig.9. The macroscopic images of tested tensile samples (a-f) and tensile fracture surfaces
(g-l) of St37 and St52 samples failed at different strain rates.

16
 20 µm 20 µm 20 µm

20 µm 20 µm 20 µm
Fig.10.The SEM images of the fracture surfaces of the failed specimens at different strain
rates (a-c) St37 and (d-e) St52.

4. Discussion

St52 steel shows higher yield values and flow stress under static and dynamic loading

conditions, as compared to St37. There are many mechanisms attributed to improving the

mechanical properties of St52 in comparison to St37 structural steel. Firstly, as can be seen

from the microstructure of two steels (Fig.1), St52 contains finer grains of ferrite and

pearlites than St37 steel. Increasing the yield stress by decreasing the grain size is consistent

with the hall-Petch relationship (σy = σo + kd-1/2), and grain boundary strengthening

mechanism[27, 31]. This dependence can be explained in terms of dislocation pile-up at grain

boundaries[27]. The number of dislocations in these pile-ups is proportional to the grain size,

d. By increasing the grain size, the number of dislocations pile-ups increases and hence the

stress concentration in the grain across the boundaries increases. Therefore, with a larger

17
grain size, a lower applied stress is required for the slip[27]. Second, increasing the yield and

ultimate strength of St52 is attributed into the solid solution role of carbon[32]. St52 contains

a higher amount of Carbon, 0.2 %C versus 0.13% of St37. Increasing the carbon content in

steels decreases the mean free path of dislocations, and therefore the yield and ultimate

strength which is dependent on the dislocation path increases[32].

To explain the effect of the strain rate on the strength, the dependency of the

dislocation motion on the strain rate is considered as shown in Equation (7)[33].

̇ ̅ (7)

where is the density of mobile dislocations, ̅ is the average dislocation velocity and

b is the burger’s vector[33]. The dislocation density increases with strain and ̅ strongly

depends on the flow stress as

̅ τm (8)

where τ is the resolved shear stress and m is a constant (m=35 for iron).

For carbon steels in which the dislocations can be strongly pinned by carbon and

nitrogen atmosphere [33], the only way that ̅ can be matched with the imposed strain rate

is an increase in the average velocity, ̅ , yet according to Eq.(8), this can only be achieved at

higher stress levels. Therefore, at high strain-rate loadings the upper yield point must be

increased to compensate for an increase in the imposed strain rate[33].

The dislocations movement results in a possible quick multiplication and an increase

in their density. This introduces some work hardening in spite of a drop in average velocity

and therefore the flow stress dominates the flow behavior. This will led to a yield drop and

lower yield the point phenomenon[26]. Thus, the stress required to deform the specimen will

be reduced once the yielding begins, i.e. the yield drop.

18
5. Conclusions

The tensile mechanical properties of St37 and St52 structural steels at room

temperature under static and dynamic loadings were examined. The results obtained can be

summarized as follows:

1. The upper yields and lower yield points of both steels are more strain sensitive than the

other tensile properties. The St37 steel are strongly affected by strain rates where 46%

and 30% increase in UYS and LYS observed with a change in the strain rate from 0.001/s

to 0.1/s, respectively. The increases obtained in UYS and LYS for the St52 steel are15%

and 6%, respectively.

2. From the extensive data extracted from tests on St37 and St52 steels, equations have been

developed which can accounts for predicting the dynamic loading effects on the lower

yield strength of materials.

3. The flow stress of St37 and St52 increase with increasing the loading rate. Since a

constitutive description of structural steels is required to simulate the flow stress of the

material, the relation of combined power law constitutive model was selected to describe

the material response.

4. The fracture strain of St37 and St52 steels decreased by increasing the loading rate. The

amounts of reduction are more pronounced for St37.

5. The fractography on the fracture surfaces indicated a ductile fracture with small and

elongated dimples occurring at St37 specimens deformed under low strain rates. The

larger dimples and cleavage-type fracture surface were evident for the specimens failed at

high loading conditions. As compared to St37 steel, the size of ductile dimples at St52

becomes larger and narrower during all strain rates.

19
Acknowledgment

The present study was supported by Material Science and Engineering Department of

Shiraz University, Iran. The fracture analyses of specimen were performed at the Razi Center

Laboratory. The collaboration of Material Science and Engineering Department and Razi

Center Laboratory is highly acknowledged.

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