Advances in experiments on metal sheets and tubes in support of constitutive modeling and forming simulations

This work is a review of experimental methods for observing and modeling the anisotropic plastic behavior of metal sheets and tubes under a variety of loading paths, such as biaxial compression tests; biaxial tension tests on metal sheets and tubes using closed-loop electrohydraulic testing machines; the abrupt strain path change method for detecting a yield vertex and subsequent yield loci without unloading; in-plane stress reversal tests on metal sheets; and multistage tension tests. Observed material responses are compared with the predictions of phenomenological plasticity models. Special attention is paid to the plastic deformation behavior of materials commonly used in industry, and to verifying the validity of conventional anisotropic yield criteria for those materials and associated flow rules at large plastic strains. The effects of using appropriate anisotropic yield criteria on the accuracy of simulations of forming defects, such as large springback and fracture, are also presented to highlight the importance of accurate material testing and modeling.