Geometry and grain size effects on the fracture behavior of sheet metal in micro-scale plastic deformation

The demand on micro-parts is significantly increasing in the last decade due to the trend of product miniaturization. When the part size is scaled down to micro-scale, the billet material consists of only a few grains and the material properties and deformation behaviors are quite different from the conventional ones in macro-scale. The size effect phenomena occur in micro-scale plastic deformation or micro-forming and there are still many unknown phenomena related to size effect, including geometry and grain size effects. It is thus critical to investigate the size effect on deformation behavior, especially for the fracture behavior in micro-scale plastic deformation. In this research, tensile test was conducted with annealed pure copper foils with different thicknesses and grain sizes to study the size effects on fracture behavior. It is found that flow stress, fracture stress and strain, and the number of micro-voids on the fracture surface decrease with the decreasing ratio of specimen size to grain size. Based on the experimental results, dislocation density based models which consider the interactive effect of specimen and grain sizes on fracture stress and strain are developed and their accuracies are further verified and validated with the experimental results obtained from this research and prior arts.

► Material size effects in micro-forming process are studied.
► Ductility decreases with the decreasing ratio of specimen size to grain size.
► Number of micro-voids decreases with the decreasing ratio of specimen size to grain size.
► Non-uniform deformation takes place in micro-scaled specimen.
► Fracture behavior is modeled based on dislocation density.