New procedure for the determination of shear stress–strain curves in sheet metal laminates

Sheet metal laminates are advanced materials with a very interesting combination of properties such as sound and vibration damping capacity. Some industrial applications have already been identified even though there is a lack of data on the behaviour of the material in service conditions and forming operations. The implementation of simulation software tools for these materials is essential to shorten the development time for new applications but it is presently much limited due to the lack of reliable data on the properties of these materials. Shear stress is one of these properties. Available standard tests have proved to be unsuitable mainly because of the geometry of the SML materials that leads to the measurement of the plastic deformation of the metallic layer rather than the shear of the bond. One device and test procedure is proposed in this work to help solve this problem. The obtained results are provided together with a comparison with the conventional tests and the subsequent validation of the entire scheme.