An Experimental and Numerical Study of Forming Limit Diagram of Low Carbon Steel Sheets

The forming limit diagram (FLD) is probably the most common representation of sheet metal formability and can be defined as the locus of the principal planar strains where failure is most likely to occur. Low carbon steel sheets have many applications in industries, especially in automotive parts, therefore it is necessary to study the formability of these steel sheets. In this paper, FLDs, were determined experimentally for two grades of low carbon steel sheets using out-of-plane (dome) formability test. The effect of different parameters such as work hardening exponent (n), anisotropy (r) and thickness on these diagrams were studied. In addition, the out-of-plane stretching test with hemispherical punch was simulated by finite element software Abaqus. The limit strains occurred with localized necking were specified by tracing the thickness strain and its first and second derivatives versus time at the thinnest element. Good agreement was achieved between the predicted data and the experimental data.