This thesis covers the deformation behavior of ductile metals which is characterized through large strains before final failure occurs. Within a certain range, these strains are reversible or elastic, whereas onward additional major non-reversible or plastic strains occur. At a certain point, at which already significant plastic strains have been accumulated, additional deterioration of the material, i.e. a damage process, starts, resulting in a macro-crack that finally leads to the failure of the material. The deformation process usually depends on the stress state, the strain rate and the temperature of the material. In this work, special focus is given to the damage and failure process. In order to describe the material behavior in a consistent way, a phenomenological continuum damage and fracture model has been developed. To make the model available for numerical simulations, the commercial finite element program LsDyna has been augmented by a user-defined material model subroutine. To determine the material behavior under controlled conditions, several experiments have been performed. The experimental results, as well as data from literature, have been used to identify the material parameters for the proposed continuum damage and fracture model for an aluminum alloy and for the stainless steel Inox 304L. The executed numerical simulations with the implemented continuum damage and fracture model show a good correlation with the experimental data. Special focus has been given to the simulation of Split-Hopkinson-Bar experiments with M-Shape tension specimens. With these numerical studies, several aspects of the special specimen geometry could be extracted and analyzed, resulting in a critical evaluation of the specimen shape. In addition, shear specimens have been numerically studied and evaluated, while an additional notch in thickness direction has been introduced which results in the required behavior and therefore could be very useful for future research. In this context, it became evident that further research should include additional experiments testing damage occurrence and evolution at different stress states. Furthermore, there is need for inverse numerical procedures in order to identify the parameters of the damage condition, damage law and fracture condition. The results of this thesis improve significantly the understanding of the deformation and fracture behavior of ductile metals. These insights can be used in several applications such as the design of light weight structures and the simulation of car crashes or high speed machining processes, allowing a maximum utilization of the material, resulting in a more responsible and cost-efficient handling of resources.
«This thesis covers the deformation behavior of ductile metals which is characterized through large strains before final failure occurs. Within a certain range, these strains are reversible or elastic, whereas onward additional major non-reversible or plastic strains occur. At a certain point, at which already significant plastic strains have been accumulated, additional deterioration of the material, i.e. a damage process, starts, resulting in a macro-crack that finally leads to the failure of t...
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