15th Technical Meeting DYMAT, Metz 1-2 June

HIGH-STRAIN-RATE BEHAVIOR OF -IRON UNDER SHEAR DOMINANT LOADING CONDITIONS Daniel Rittel* and Guruswami Ravichandran
Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA * Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, 32000 Haifa, Israel

This paper is dedicated to Dr. Janusz R. Klepaczko for his pioneering contributions in the areas of Dynamic Behavior of Materials and Experimental Mechanics.
Summary: A recently developed specimen geometry, the shear compression specimen (SCS) [1,2] has been used in the seamless characterization of the large strain behavior of -iron over a range of strain rates, 10-3 to 2x104 s-1. In addition to the mechanical response (stress-strain) obtained using the split Hopkinson (Kolsky) pressure bar, the in-situ temperature rise during dynamic deformation is measured using a high-speed infrared detector. The stress-strain response of the material at low and intermediate strain rates compares well with prior experiments on as received -iron [3,4]. However, the response of the material deformed at very high strain rates coincides with that of the pre-shocked material [5]. The fraction of the conversion of plastic work into heat is calculated using experimental measurements of temperature during dynamic deformation. The material in the gage section is found to exhibit limited twinning at high-strain-rates and the hardness is comparable to that of pre-shocked -iron [6].

INTRODUCTION The high-strain-rate behavior of metals has been recognized to play an important role in many technologies including manufacturing processes such as rolling, forming and high-speed machining, and as well as in ballistic failure, dynamic crack growth and shear banding. Accurate computational modeling of these processes requires the knowledge of material behavior at large strains over a wide range of strain rates. Relevant constitutive data are also essential for validating multiscale material models such as the one proposed recently for bcc metals [7]. The validation of such models require robust experimental measurements that can be used to aid in the refinement of such models aimed at bridging length scales in high strain rate deformation of metals. The dynamic nature of many of the above mentioned processes has motivated the study of high-strain rate deformations. In this paper, results for high-strain-rate, large-strain deformation of as received -iron (bcc) obtained using the recently developed shear compression specimen [1,2] are presented and discussed. EXPERIMENTAL The shear compression specimen (SCS) consists of a rectangular plate or a cylinder into which two slots are machined at 45 to the longitudinal axis [1,2]. A schematic of the planar SCS geometry is shown in Fig. 1a and a photograph of undeformed and deformed cylindrical SCS is shown in Fig. 1b. Upon compression of the plate or cylinder at the ends, the gage section (slotted section) experiences a dominant state of shear deformation. The gage section is defined by its height (w) and thickness (t). The width (B) and the height (L) of the plate are chosen such that the sections adjoining the gage remain nominally elastic during deformation. The gage length is obtained from geometry, h = 2 w . By adjusting the slot width (w), a wide range of strain rates can be achieved. The typical dimensions of the rectangular SCS are L=24 mm, D=9.7 mm, t=2.54 mm and the slot width (w) varies in the range of 0.5 to 2.6 mm.

P, d B w h L
45

P, d
Fig. 1. a-Schematic of the planar shear compression specimen (SCS), b-Undeformed and deformed cylindrical SCS

15th Technical Meeting DYMAT, Metz 1-2 June

Quasi-static experiments are seldom carried out at rates in excess of 1 s-1. Consequently, there is a gap in the 1-100 s-1 range of strain rates and cannot be bridged easily using conventional testing equipment or specimens. Similarly, there is a gap in the range of strain rates achievable with cylindrical specimens in the split Hopkinson bar (103 to 104 s-1) [8] and those achievable in the pressure-shear plate impact experiments (105 to 106 s-1) [9]. The SCS specimen provides a simple means for bridging these gaps in the aforementioned range of strain rates by varying the gage width (w). The stress and strain state in the gage section is three-dimensional, though the deformation is shear dominant. Yet, considerable simplification is gained through the introduction of simple approximations for the von Mises equivalent stress and plastic strain which has been aided by analysis and numerical simulations [1,2]. Despite the threedimensional nature of the deformation in the gage section, it has been shown through detailed 3-D numerical simulations [1,2] that the equivalent stress and strain within the gage section are fairly uniform and a homogeneous &eq ) in the gage section for the state of deformation prevails. The equivalent stress ( eq ), strain ( eq ) and strain rate ( rectangular SCS geometry can be expressed in terms of the measured load (P), displacement (d) and the geometrical parameters [1,2],
eq = k1 1 k 2 eq eq = k3

P ) Bt

& d d &eq = k3 ; h h

(1)

where k1, k2 and k3 are material and geometry (w/t) dependent constants. They are determined from numerical simulations and verified by experiments. For -iron, k1=1, k2=0 to 0.05 and k3=0.43 to 1. Quasistatic testing was carried out on a servo-hydraulic MTS machine (displacement control) and high strain rate compressive testing was carried out using a split Hopkinson (Kolsky) pressure bar [8]. The load (P) and displacement (d) for each test was calculated using established procedures of converting experimental data [1]. Continuous measurement of the temperature rise () of the specimen during dynamic deformation allows for determination of the thermo-mechanical conversion of plastic work to heat. The temperature was measured using a using a single HgCdTe high speed infrared detector which measures the radiation from a spot (100 m x 100 m) at the center of the gage section imaged through a Newtonian telescopic system [10]. Assuming adiabatic conditions to prevail during dynamic deformation, the conversion of plastic work to heat can be conveniently expressed in terms of the following two factors,
dif = & c , int = &p eq
eq

c
eq 0

(2)

eq d &p

where is the mass density and c is the thermal heat capacity of the material. The Taylor-Quinney parameters dif (differential) and int (integral) represent the rate plastic work converted to heating (as it appears in the heat conduction equation and relevant to coupled thermo-mechanical problems) and the amount of total accumulated plastic work that has been converted to heat. Both these quantities are generally considered to be constant and are generally assumed to be around 0.9. However, a recent investigation [10] has shown that the parameter dif for metals is not a constant but a function of strain and strain rate. Note that in the absence of internal heat source, int is necessarily less than 1. However there is no such restriction on dif. The experiments were conducted on specimens prepared from an as received cylindrical bar (diameter, 25.4 mm) of 99 weight % pure polycrystalline -iron. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Typical stress-strain curves obtained over a wide range of strain rates using the SCS and associated hardening for iron are shown in Fig. 2. The material exhibits considerable hardening at quasistatic strain rates (~10-3 s-1) and the material can be deformed to large equivalent strains (in excess of 1). Limited number of experiments was also performed using cylindrical specimens. The response of the SCS specimen including strain hardening is nearly identical to that of the cylindrical specimens at quasistatic strain rates. For the SCS specimens, with increasing strain rate, the material exhibited considerable rate sensitivity which is in accord with earlier observations [4]. Also, the strain hardening of the material appears to be highly rate dependent and the strain hardening decreases with increasing strain rate. The stress-strain curve exhibits softening even at small strains immediately following yield at the higher strain rates (in excess of 5,000 s-1). The flow stress at eq=0.1 is plotted as a function of strain rate in Fig. 3. As stated earlier, the material exhibits considerable rate sensitivity, particularly at strain rates beyond 103 s-1. The highest strain rate achieved for -iron with the SCS specimen was around 2x104 s-1, a strain rate that is generally not achievable in a split
2

15th Technical Meeting DYMAT, Metz 1-2 June

Hopkinson (Kolsky) pressure bar using cylindrical specimens. In Fig. 3, the data from torsion experiments of Kelpaczko [3] converted to equivalent stress-strain curves is shown for the quasistatic strain rates. The data from the current study compares well with the published data [3] providing validity for the SCS approach, particularly the concept of employing Mises equivalents for stress and strain for characterizing the prevailing three-dimensional state of deformation in the gage section.
x 10
8

12

10

STRESS [Pa]

6 0.001s -1 3000s -1 8100s -1 15000s

-1

0 0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

TRUE STRAIN

Fig. 2. Typical stress-strain curves for -iron obtained using the shear compression specimen (SCS)
x 10
8

12

10

Present work Klepaczko [3]-as received Weston [5] - as received Weston [5]- pre-shocked

STRESS (Pa)

10

-4

10

-2

10

10
-1

10

STRAIN RATE (s )
Fig. 3. Rate sensitivity of -iron
3

15th Technical Meeting DYMAT, Metz 1-2 June

Weston performed quasistatic and high strain rate compression experiments using cylindrical specimens on as-received and pre-shocked -iron and observed that the stress-strain curves for pre-shocked iron showed considerable softening at high strain rates as observed in the present study. Figure 4 shows the stress-strain curves at a nominal strain rate of 9,000 s-1 from the SCS (as received material) and the cylindrical specimen (pre-shocked material) [5]. It can be seen that the response of the as received material obtained using SCS is in excellent agreement with that of the cylindrical specimen made from the pre-shocked material. This can be contrasted with the data from Ostwaldt et al. [4] for a cylindrical specimen of the as received material at the same nominal strain rate. It is seen that the cylindrical specimen of the as received material exhibits substantial hardening. The flow stress of the pre-shocked material at quasistatic strain rates is much higher (by a factor of 2) in comparison to the as received material (SCS) from the present study as seen in Fig. 3. However, at high strain rates (>5,000 s-1), the flow stresses of the two materials are comparable and this is the regime where one observes the as received material to exhibit strain softening. It should also be noted that the preshocked material is only weakly rate sensitive even at the highest strain rates and can be attributed to shock hardening.
1800 1600 1400 1200

STRESS (MPa)

1000 800 600 400 200 0 0 Ostwaldt et al. [4] - heat treated Weston [5] - pre-shocked Present work

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

TRUE STRAIN

Fig. 4. Comparison of the stress-strain response at 9,000 s-1 for -iron with Ostwaldt et al. [4] and Weston [5] In-situ temperature measurements during high strain rate deformation are used to gain insights regarding the conversion of plastic work into heat. A typical example of stress and temperature for the SCS deformed at a nominal strain rate of 3,800 s-1 are plotted as a function of strain in Fig. 5. The parameters dif and int describing the conversion of plastic
10 x 10
8

80

7.5 60
STRESS [Pa] TEMPERATURE [C]

5 40 2.5

0 0

0.1

0.2
TRUE STRAIN

0.3

0.4

20

Fig. 5. Stress and temperature rise as a function of strain for dynamically deformed SCS
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15th Technical Meeting DYMAT, Metz 1-2 June

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4

int dif

1.6 1.4 1.2

int

diff

0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0.05

1 0.8 0.6 0.4

(a)
0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45

(b)
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

STRAIN

STRAIN

Fig. 6. Parameters for the conversion of plastic work converted to heat plotted as a function of strain at strain rates: a-3,800 s-1 and b-8,400 s-1 work to heat are computed using Eq. (2) form data such as those shown in Fig. 5. Typical examples of the two parameters are shown in Fig. 6a,b for nominal strain rates of 3,800 and 8,400 s-1, respectively. For deformation at a strain rate of 3,800 s-1 (Fig. 6a), both values are less than 1, as expected for deformation of metals. However, for deformation at a strain rate of 8,400 s-1 (Fig. 6b), it is seen that int is greater than 1 beyond a strain of 0.5. This anomalous behavior indicates that there is internal heat release during deformation, giving rise to heating in addition to the thermomechanical conversion of plastic work to heat. It should be noted that at the higher strain rates, the as received material behaves like the pre-shocked material in addition to the strain softening behavior (Fig. 4). The preshocked material has undergone a reversible phase transformation from (bcc) to (hcp) phase of iron. However, this phase transformation is also accompanied by residual plastic deformation characterized by debris which is the remnant of the phase transformation [6]. The microhardness profile across the gage section of the deformed SCS sample (strain rate, 11,500 s-1) is shown in Fig. 7. It is seen that the hardness in the material surrounding the gage section is around 140 HVN and the hardness is elevated considerably within the gage section to 250 HVN. Also, the hardness in the gage section is comparable to the hardness values quoted for shocked -iron [6]. The as received and deformed microstructures were examined after etching using optical and scanning electron microscopy. The microstructure of the as received material is shown in Fig. 8a and the micrograph of the dynamically deformed gage section is shown in Fig. 8b. The as received material has an equiaxed microstructure with a nominal grain size of 40 m. The deformed material (Fig. 8b) shows extensive recrystallization and as well as a small amount of twinning. Follansbee [11] observed twins in cylindrical samples of pure iron deformed at 4,000 s-1. Nicolazo and Leroy [12] show that at a strain rate 2,500 s-1, annealed iron exhibit twinning while cold-drawn iron does not show twinning. It appears that this recrystallization may be responsible for the heat released that is observed during the deformation at high strain rates as indicated by the anomalous values (Fig. 6b).

300 Hardness (HVN) 250 200 150 100 50 0 0.5 1 1.5 Distance (mm) 2 2.5 3
Gage Section

Fig. 7. Microhardness of -iron deformed at a nominal strain rate of 11,500 s-1

15th Technical Meeting DYMAT, Metz 1-2 June

(a)

40 m

(b)

Fig. 8. a-Micrograph of as received -iron, b-Micrograph of heavily deformed gage section CONCLUSIONS A recently developed specimen known as the shear compression specimen (SCS) [1,2] has been used to study the shear dominant dynamic behavior of as received -iron up to strain rates of 2x104 s-1. The material exhibits considerable rate sensitivity at strain rates beyond 103 s-1. The material exhibits strain hardening and the response shows good agreement with published literature data [3,4] until up to strain rate of 5,000 s-1. At strain rates beyond 5,000 s-1, the material exhibits strain softening and the material response is in good agreement with high strain rate available for preshocked material [5]. The fraction of plastic converted to heat computed using in-situ dynamic measurements of temperature show anomalous behavior (int>1) at the higher strain rates where the material exhibits strain softening. The exothermic heat release observed during dynamic deformation is likely the result of recrystallization that accompanies large strain deformation at high strain rates. Microhardness measurements in the gage section show values that are representative of the shocked -iron [6]. Acknowledgements The research reported here is supported by the US Department of Energy through the ASCI Center for Dynamic Response of Materials at the California Institute of Technology and is gratefully acknowledged. GR would like to acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research (Dr. J. Christodoulou, Program Manager) for his research on dynamic behavior of metals. References
[1] Rittel, D., Lee, S., Ravichandran, G., A shear-compression specimen for large strain testing, Exp. Mech., 42 (2002), pp. 58-64 [2] Vural, M., Rittel, D., Ravichandran, G., Large strain mechanical behavior of 1018 steel over a wide range of strain rates, Met. Mat. Trans. 34A (2003), pp. 2873-2885 [3] Klepaczko, J.R., The strain rate behavior of iron in pure shear. Int. J. Sol. Structures, 5 (1969), pp. 533-548 [4] Ostwaldt, D., Klepaczko, J.R., Klimanek, P., Compression tests of polycrystalline alpha-iron up to high strains over a large range of strain rates, J. de Physique IV, 7 (C3) (1997), pp. 385-390 [5] Weston, G.M., 1992, Flow stress of shock-hardened Remco iron over strain rates from 0.001 to 9,000 s-1, J. Mat. Sci. Lett., 11 (1992), pp. 13611363 [6] Meyers, M.A., Dynamic Behavior of Materials, New York, John Wiley & Sons (1994) [7] Cuitino, A.M., Stainier, L., Wang, G.F., Strachan A., Cagin T., Goddard, W.A., Ortiz, M., A multiscale approach for modeling crystalline, J. Comp. Aid. Matls. Des., 8 (2002), pp. 127-149 [8] Gray, III, G. T., Classic Split-Hopkinson pressure bar testing, in: ASM Handbook, Vol. 8, Mechanical Testing and Evaluation, ASM International, Metals Park, Ohio (2000), pp. 462-476. [9] Clifton, R.J., Klopp, R.W., Pressure shear plate impact testing, in: Metals Handbook, Vol. 8, 9th edition, Mechanical Testing, ASM, Metals Park, Ohio (1985), pp. 230-239 [10] Hodowany, J., Ravichandran, G. ., Rosakis, A. J., Rosakis, P., Partition of plastic work into heat and stored energy in metals, Exp. Mech., 40 (2000), pp. 113-123 [11] Follansbee, P.S., Analysis of the strain-rate sensitivity at high strain rates in fcc and bcc metals, Proc. Inst. Phys. Conf., Ser. 102 (1989), p. 213 [12] Nicolazo, C., Leroy, M., Dynamic behaviour of -iron under decremental step pulses, Mech. Matls, 34 (2002), pp. 231-241