THE EFFECT OF STRAIN RATE ON

TENSILE PROPERTIES AND FRACTURE STRAIN

Gang Huang, Benda Yan and Hong Zhu
ArcelorMittal USA LLC

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Outline
Background
Purpose of the work
Materials tested
Results
Strain rate effect on tensile properties
Strain rate effect on fracture strain
Conclusions

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Background
Effect of strain rate on tensile properties and fracture behavior
is of critical importance to crash performance.
There are two major issues for tensile testing at high strain
rates
Severe load oscillation deteriorates quality of stress-strain
curve
Existing strain measurement devices (strain gage, LVDT, or
Doppler extensometer) are not accurate and reliable at high
strain rates
Data on the effect of strain rate on tensile properties/fracture
strain is scarce due to testing difficulties
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Purpose of Work
Improve data quality of high strain rate tests by
using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique
Understand strain rate effect on fracture strain
using DIC
Tensile fracture
Cut edge fracture

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Experiment
Tensile test at high strain rate
MTS servo-hydraulic testing machine
20kip load capacity
Maximum speed 5.5 m/s
3-point bending of hat section beam
Quasi-static: 100kip MTS testing machine
Dynamic: drop tower mass 380 kg, speed 8m/s
Time t
Time t +
Digital Image Correlation (DIC)
t
Full field non-contact
deformation measurement
Accurate output of
displacement and strain

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Time t +

2t

High Strain Rate Test

Light source

Load washer

High speed camera

Image acquisition
Slack adapter
Data acquisition

High strain rate test with DIC system

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High Strain Rate Test

Load cell
Piezoelectric
load washer

Specimen

Top and bottom

fixtures

Strain gauge for

load measurement
Random speckles for
strain measurement

Slack adapter

Actuator

Schematic of testing setup

High strain rate specimen

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High Strain Rate Test Load Signal Improvement

Load cell
Load washer
Improvement with strain gauge

9000

Load cell
Load washer
Improvement with strain gage

5000

8000

4000

7000

Load (N)

Load (N)

6000
3000

Strain rate: 540/s

5000
4000

2000

3000

Strain rate: 226/s

2000

1000

1000
0

0
0

Displacement (mm)

Load-displacement curves
of DP590 at 220/s

Displacement (mm)

Load-displacement curves
of DP780 at 550/s

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Materials
Tensile Properties
Coating

Yield
Strength
(MPa)

Tensile
Strength
(MPa)

Uniform
Elongation
(%)

Total
Elongation
(%)

Local
Fracture strain
(%)

1.54

Uncoated

123

284

27.0

55.0

110

DP590 CR

1.4

Uncoated

347

612

17.0

28.0

73

590R

1.4

GA

485

618

14.3

22.1

66

DP780

1.4

EG

527

822

11.1

18.0

58

TRIP780

1.4

GA

503

892

15.0

21.3

46

DP980

1.4

Uncoated

636

1043

8.5

13.4

46

DP980

1.4

GA

645

1002

8.4

13.8

45

Material

Thickness
(mm)

EDDS

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Stress-strain Curves

800

1000

600

Engineering stress (MPa)

Engineering stress (MPa)

700

500
DP590-0.02/s

400

DP590-1/s

300

DP590-10/s
DP590-34/s
DP590-226/s
DP590-560/s

200

800

600
DP780-0.008/s
DP780-1/s
DP780-10/s

400

DP780-34/s
DP780-231/s
DP780-540/s

200
100

0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Engineering strain

Engineering stress-strain
curves of DP590

0.5

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Engineering strain

Engineering stress-strain
curves of DP780

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0.35

0.4

Stress-strain Curves
600

Engineering stress (MPa)

500

400

300
EDDS-0.02/s
EDDS-1/s

200

EDDS-10/s
EDDS-34/s
EDDS-138/s

100

EDDS-229/s
EDDS-570/s

0
0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Engineering strain

Engineering stress-strain curves of EDDS

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Strain Rate Effect on Tensile Properties

Tensile properties of EDDS at different strain rates
Tensile properties

0.02 /s

1 /s

10 /s

34 /s

138 /s

229 /s

570 /s

UTS (MPa)

286

307

338

354

371

400

450

UE

0.271

0.251

0.2

0.214

0.233

0.217

0.195

TEL (5mm GL)

0.958

0.917

0.983

NA

0.942

0.9833

NA

Tensile properties of DP590 at different strain rates

Tensile properties

0.02 /s

1 /s

10 /s

34 /s

226 /s

560 /s

UTS (MPa)

630

660

672

690

696

723

UE

0.17

0.168

0.175

0.169

0.175

0.174

TEL (5mm GL)

0.547

0.467

0.517

0.55

0.517

0.533

Tensile properties of DP780 at different strain rates

Tensile properties

0.02 /s

1 /s

10 /s

34 /s

231 /s

540 /s

UTS (MPa)

820

833

857

862

867

880

UE

0.114

0.124

0.112

0.125

0.126

0.112

TEL (5mm GL)

0.408

0.4

0.392

0.4

0.4

0.417

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Strain Rate Effect on Tensile Strength

900

Tensile strength (MPa)

800

700
EDDS

600

DP590 CR
DP780 EG

500
400

300
200
0.01

0.1

10

100

1000

Strain rate (1/s)

Relation between tensile strength and strain rate

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Strain Rate Effect on Elongations

1.2

Elongation

0.8
Total
Elongation

EDDS-TEL
DP590 CR-TEL

0.6

DP780 EG-TEL
EDDS-UE
DP590 CR-UE

0.4

DP780 EG-UE

Uniform
Elongation

0.2

0
0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

10

100

1000

Strain rate (1/s)

Uniform elongation and total elongation

with respect to strain rate

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Strain Rate Effect on tensile fracture strain

Fracture strain of 5 materials at different strain rates
Material

Quasi
static

1/s

10/s

120/s

220/s

500/s

Standard
deviation

EDDS

1.13

1.12

1.1

1.09

1.13

NA

0.018

DP590 CR

0.738

0.681

0.711

0.741

0.734

0.691

0.025

GA 590R

0.668

0.6295

0.661

0.6715

0.6446

0.5718

0.037

DP780

0.602

0.615

0.619

0.611

0.598

0.564

0.02

DP980 LC

0.4819

0.4762

0.4908

0.5202

0.5193

0.5174

0.02

An animation showing the

speckles change of GA
590R at 200/s
(camera speed 4000
frame/s)

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Strain Rate Effect on fracture strain

1.6
EDDS
1.4

DP590 CR
590R GA

1.2

DP780 CR

Fracture strain

DP980 EG
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.01

0.1

10

100

1000

Strain rate (1/s)

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800

20

3-point Bending Beam Tests Quasi-static

60

80

Test setup of quasi-static beam test and specimen

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3-point Bending Beam Tests Dynamic

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Strain Rate Effect on Edge fracture strain

Edge Fracture Strain
Material

Notch from water-jet cutting

Notch from punching

Beam-dynamic*
(~ 65/s)

Beam- quasi-static
(~ 0.46/s)

Beam- dynamic*
(~ 65/s)

Beam- quasi-static
(~ 0.46/s)

DP980 CR

0.35

0.39

0.36

0.34

DP980 GA

0.28

0.32

0.3

0.29

TRIP 780 GA

0.38

0.37

0.27

0.2

GA 590R

0.45

0.57

0.45

0.5

*Note: The fracture strain of

dynamic beam was determined
using FEA combined with experiment
(fracture strain of quasi-static beam
was directly measured using DIC)

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Conclusions

Data quality of high strain rate testing is improved by

applying strain gauge in grip section and DIC technique.
Strain rate has little effect on uniform elongation and total
elongation for Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) such
as DP590 and DP780.
In agreement with existing data, the tensile strength
increases with strain rate.
Strain rate exhibited insignificant effect on fracture strain
for the tested materials.
DIC can be used as an effective tool in strain
measurement for plasticity and fracture studies for high
strength steels.
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