Effect of material scatter on the plastic behavior and stretchability in sheet metal forming

For the purpose of this research, samples of 41 coils of a forming steel DX54D+Z (EN 10327:2004) from multiple casts have been collected. Fully determining the stochastic material behavior to the required accuracy for modeling in FE simulations would require many mechanical experiments. Instead, the present work combines mechanical testing and texture analysis to limit the required effort. Moreover, use is made of the correlations between the material parameters to efficiently model the material property scatter for use in the numerical robustness analysis. The proposed approach is validated by the forming of a series of cup products using the collected material. The observed experimental scatter can be reproduced efficiently using FE simulations, demonstrating the potential of the modeling approach and robustness analysis in general.