Simon; Niemeyer; Steiner

Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3

Exercise 3 Complex Material: Plasticity and Hardening

1. Learn how
to define ideal elastic-plastic material with hardening to simulate a loading history by a sequence of (static) load steps plasticity and hardening can cause residual stresses

2. Given
Cantilever beam (length L) bended by a force F as shown in Fig. 1.

L
Fig. 1: Cantilever beam.

Relevant geometrical and material data for our problem are given in Table 1: F1 F2 F3 L h t E = = = = = = = = 12,000 N N 0 N 1,000 mm 60 mm 20 mm 73,100 N/mm2 0.33 0.33 Force at load step 1 Force at load step 2 Force at load step 3 Length of the cantilever beam Height of the beam cross section Thickness of the beam cross section Youngs modulus Poissons ration

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Simon; Niemeyer; Steiner = = 7,310 414 N/mm2 N/mm2

Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3 Tangent modulus (assumption: 10% of E) Yield stress of Al 2014-T6
Table 1: Parameters

yield

3. Perform the Strain Hardening Simulation using ANSYS

Please follow the instructions below:

Step 1: Complete the first part of the template script file

Download the provided template input file FE-Lab3-template.inp from the UZWR homepage (www.uzwr.de) and complete it step by step. Lines in the file which start with are indicating a place where you may add something. In any case, you should change this line, because dots () are not a valid command. Run the script up to the line marked in the next figure (copy the commands up to that line and paste it into the command line of the ANSYS GUI).

Step 2: Complete the definition of the material properties

Try to complete the necessary material property definitions in the script:

?
In order to find the appropriate APDL commands, use the Materials Model GUI dialog and find the Bilinear plasticity option (cf. figure).

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Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3

Double click on it to open the following dialog window:

Press the Help button to open the online documentation about defining bilinear plasticity behavior. Note: If you have not yet defined the linear elastic properties of your material (Step 1), ANSYS will ask you for those first before showing the dialog for the plasticity properties. Add the appropriate APDL commands for defining the plasticity behavior to your script and try to let it run up to this point. If you used the correct commands, the material properties dialog should display the following values:

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Simon; Niemeyer; Steiner

Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3

Plot the corresponding stress-strain curve by clicking the Graph button:

Step 3: Define three load steps

As a next step, you will have to apply load and boundary conditions. The force acting on the beam should be changed over three successive load steps. To find appropriate commands, go to Preprocessor / Load / Load Step Options and familiarize yourself with the concept of load steps. You need to find APDL commands to write a load step file. Further complete your script file by entering the required APDL commands at the three marked locations:

Now you should look for a command for solving the FE model at all three load steps. The solve command, which we used previously, is not appropriate anymore. Check out Preprocessor / Solution / Solve to find a different command and enter it in your script.

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Simon; Niemeyer; Steiner

Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3

Step 4: Complete the postprocessor commands

Complete your script file in order to get plots of the following results: o Displacement in vertical direction o Normal stress in beam axial direction o Normal elastic strain o Normal plastic strain Try to get those results for ALL load steps. Try out o the command SET, o PlotCtrls / Capture Image and also o General Postproc / Results Viewer.

4. Questions to be answered
What is the max. elastic strain in the cantilever? What is the max. plastic strain in the cantilever? What is the max. normal stress along axial direction on the cantilever? After unloading the cantilever, why are there still elastic strains present? After unloading the cantilever, at which location are the residual stresses concentrated and why? Where, when and why does strain hardening occur?

5. Background
The stress-strain curve or diagram gives a direct indication of the material properties. Hookes Law (Robert Hooke, 1678): Describes the purely elastic behavior (up to the yield point) of materials for a bar subject to uniaxial extension [1]. = E Eq.1

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Simon; Niemeyer; Steiner

Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3

Fig. 2: The meaning of stress-strain curve at different positions [1].

PL EL YP YS U
E

Et

Proportional Limit - Stress above which stress is not longer proportional to strain. Elastic Limit - The maximum stress that can be applied without resulting in permanent deformation when unloaded. Yield Point - Stress at which there are large increases in strain with little or no increase in stress. Among common structural materials, only steel exhibits this type of response. Yield Strength - The maximum stress that can be applied without exceeding a specified value of permanent strain (typically 0.2%). Ultimate Strength - The maximum stress the material can withstand (based on the original area) Modulus of Elasticity - Slope of the initial linear portion of the stress-strain diagram. The modulus of elasticity may also be characterized as the stiffness or ability of a material to resist deformation within the linear range Tangent Modulus - Slope of the stress-strain curve above the proportional limit. There is no single value for the tangent modulus; it varies with strain and describes the hardening of the material. Poissons ratio The ratio of lateral or transverse strain to the longitudinal strain of an uniaxial load case. Poissons ratios ranges from 0.0 to 0.49

Ductile Material Materials capable of undergoing large strains (at normal temperature) before failure. Ductile materials are capable of absorbing large amounts of energy, leading to visible distortions (plastic deformations) prior to failure. Ductile materials include mild steel, aluminium and some of its alloys, copper, magnesium, nickel, brass, bronze and many others. They fail under shear stresses by yielding. Brittle Material Materials that exhibit very little inelastic deformation. In other words, materials that fail in tension at relatively low values of strain are considered brittle. Brittle materials include concrete, stone, cast iron, glass and plaster [1]. They fail under normal tensile stresses. Here we are concentrating on ductile materials. Strain hardening (also called work-hardening or cold-working) is the process of making a metal harder and stronger through plastic deformation. When a metal is Winter Term 2012 6/8

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Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3

plastically deformed, dislocations move and additional dislocations are generated. The more dislocations within a material, the more they will interact and become pinned or tangled. This will result in a decrease in the mobility of the dislocations and a strengthening of the material. This type of strengthening is commonly called coldworking. It is called cold-working because the plastic deformation must occur at a temperature low enough that atoms cannot rearrange themselves. When a metal is worked at higher temperatures (hot-working) the dislocations can rearrange and little strengthening is achieved [3]. Strain hardening can be easily demonstrated with a piece of wire or a paper clip. Bend a straight section back and forth several times. Notice that it is more difficult to bend the metal at the same place. In the strain hardened area dislocations have formed and become tangled, increasing the strength of the material. Continued bending will eventually cause the wire to break at the bend due to fatigue cracking. After a large number of bending cycles, dislocations form structures called Persistent Slip Bands (PSB). PSBs are basically tiny areas where the dislocations have piled up and moved the material surface out leave steps in the surface that act as stress risers or crack initiation points [3].

Fig. 3: The effect of strain hardening on yield strength and ductility [3].

It should be understood, however, that increasing the strength by cold-working will also result in a reduction in ductility. The graph shows the yield strength and the percent elongation as a function of percent cold-work for a few example materials. Notice that for each material, a small amount of cold-working results in a significant reduction in ductility [3]. Tangent Modulus The Tangent Modulus Et is defined as the slope of the stress-strain curve at each value of strain [2]. For an idealized elastic-plastic material law the Winter Term 2012 7/8

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Comp. Meth. Mat. Sc. / FEA / Lab 3

Tangent Modulus is used to define the slope of the stress-strain curve beyond the yielding point. Actually the term is confusing since this slope is not indicating an elastic behavior, not stiffness, but the hardening effect described above.

6. References
[1] http://www.optics.arizona.edu/optomech/references/OPTI_222/OPTI_222_W4.pdf [2] S. Schneider, S. G. Schneider, H. Marques da Silva, C. de Moura Neto: Study of the non-linear stressstrain behavior in Ti-Nb-Zr alloys; Materials Research. vol.8 no.4, Oct./Dec. 2005 [3] http://www.ndted.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Materials/Structure/strengthening.htm [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strain_hardening_exponent

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