Failure characteristics of a dual-phase steel sheet

Failure in ductile sheet metal structures is usually caused by one, or a combination of, ductile tensile fractures, ductile shear fractures or localised instability. In this paper the failure characteristics of the high strength steel Docol 600DP are explored. The study includes both experimental and numerical sections. In the experimental sections, the fracture surface of the sheet subjected to Nakajima tests is studied under the microscope with the aim of finding which failure mechanism causes the fracture. In the numerical sections, finite element (FE) simulations have been conducted using solid elements. From these simulations, local stresses and strains have been extracted and analysed with the aim of identifying the fracture dependency of the stress triaxiality and Lode parameter.