Anisotropic plastic deformation of extruded aluminum alloy tube under axial forces and internal pressure

The anisotropic plastic deformation behavior of extruded 5000 series aluminum alloy tubes, A5154-H112, of 76 mm outer diameter and 3.9 mm wall thickness is investigated, using a servo-controlled tension-internal pressure testing machine. This machine is capable of applying arbitrary stress or strain paths to a tubular specimen using an electrical, closed-loop control system. Detailed measurements were made of the initial yield locus, contours of plastic work for different levels of work-hardening, and the directions of the incremental plastic strain vectors for both linear and combined stress paths. It is found that the measured work contours constructed in the principal stress space are similar in shape, and that the directions of the incremental plastic strain vectors remain almost constant at constant stress ratios. The work-hardening behavior predicted using Hosford's or the Yld2000-2d yield functions under the assumption of isotropic hardening agrees closely with the observations for both linear and combined stress paths. The material is thus found to work-harden almost isotropically. Both yield functions are effective phenomenological plasticity models for predicting the anisotropic plastic deformation behavior of the material.