An evaluation of the statistics of steel material model parameters

In robustness studies, variations of material properties are often represented by simple assumptions, such as scaling of stress-strain relations, often due to lack of knowledge or deeper understanding of the material physics and the material model applied. By performing material characterisation tests on several batches of a DP600 steel and fitting a phenomenological material model to each batch, this paper studies the dispersion of material model parameters, as well as correlations between both experimental and model parameters. It is concluded that some of the characterisation tests may be omitted in the future, due to correlations found between parameters. The results may also be applied in a robustness study by inversely using the retrieved statistics to generate reasonable new sets of material model parameters. The methodology presented may be adopted for any other type of material characterisation process.