Influence of uniaxial tensile pre-strain on forming limit curve by using biaxial tensile test

This paper focused on the effect of pre-strain on forming limit curves (FLC) of 5754-O aluminum alloy sheet through utilizing biaxial tensile approach. Based on Swift model and Yld2000-2d yield criterion, the dimensions of cruciform specimen was optimized through applying finite element method for increasing the strain at specimen center. After that, with the recommended specimen size, the cruciform specimen was tested under various stroke ratios to experimentally characterize the limit strains under different pre-strain levels. Subsequently, the biaxial tensile tests were simulated by Abaqus to obtain the limit strains and validate the material models. It can be observed in both experiments and simulations that the pre-strained uniaxial tension followed by plane tension or equi-biaxial tension can improve the formability of sheet metals. Besides, the strain path change affects the trend of first derivative of strain rate difference between neighboring points with respect to time. An early increase occurred and then fell back to the stable value, the steady evolution continued until to a new increase reaching the critical value. The M–K prediction approach was simulated to verify the influence of pre-strain on FLC. It can be found that the early increase peaks of the major strain incremental ratio rose with the amplitude of pre-strain. Finally, the phenomenon of pseudolocalization caused by the strain path change was explained through evolution of stress state inside the groove.