Reduction of cross section area at fracture in tensile test: Measurement and applications for flat sheet steels

Abstract

This contribution deals with the use of maximum thinning and reduction of sample cross section area at fracture after tensile testing and applications for industrial flat sheet steels. Although included in all usual tensile testing standards, this mechanical property ("Z-value") has long been neglected for flat sheet materials. It happens however to include some most valuable information on local ductility at fracture of sheet steels. This is increasingly needed for a more suitable description and ranking of newly developed advanced high strength sheet steels with regard to local ductility (stretch-flangeability, bendability, crash-ability) versus global ductility (deep-drawability). It is shown in this investigation that the ISO16630 punched and milled hole expansion ratio correlates linearly with the relative thickness reduction at fracture. A classification of cold rolled AHSS-UHSS sheet steels is attempted by plotting the relative thickness & area reduction at fracture vs. uniform and fracture elongation.