Hole expansion of dual phase steels

Abstract

In this work, the stretch-flangeability of dual phase (DP) steels was investigated through hole expansion (HE) tests for three DP980 steel sheet samples. In order to understand the effect of hole surface quality on the HE results, the specimens were prepared with three hole machining methods, namely, electrical discharge machining (EDM), punching and laser cutting. The HE results were discussed in terms of the hole surface quality before and after testing. Moreover, the failure behaviour was analyzed based on the observations of the fracture surfaces using optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). © 2012 WIT Press.