A procedure to determine the tangential true stress-strain behavior of pipes

• Procedure to determine the tangential stress-strain curve of pipes.
• Optimum ring specimen geometry with a centralized neck.
• Localized necking is accomplished without tapering the gauge region of specimen.
• Innovative technique using lubricated roller needle bearings to reduce friction.

Determining the tangential mechanical properties of a tube is essential for simulation of various manufacturing processes that involve the use of a tubular geometry. The aim of this study is to develop a procedure to determine the tangential true stress-strain behavior of pipes. For this purpose a modified ring test setup is proposed consisting of a ring specimen loaded with two separate D-blocks. Using a finite element model, an optimized ring specimen geometry is obtained. The optimized ring specimen exhibits uniform tangential distribution in the gauge region of the specimen and necking occurs consistently at the center of the gauge length. It is found that friction has a substantial effect on the mechanical response of the ring test for which two different setups to reduce friction are proposed. One using lubricated D-blocks (DB) and one using lubricated D-blocks with needle roller bearing (RB). Assisted by the FE model, the friction during the experiment is account for and a data analysis procedure to determine the tangential stress-strain curve of the pipe is proposed. It is found that the results using this procedure show very good agreement with previously published results.