Linking constituent phase properties to ductility and edge stretchability of two DP 980 steels

Two DP 980 steels were characterized with multiple methods to determine its microstructure characteristics, tensile properties and edge stretchability. The first (DP980-B) is a commercial grade DP980 steel produced by AK Steel, while the second (DP980-T) is a modification of the first one by a tempering process. Both contain two individual phases: ferrite and martensite with body centered cubic (BCC) and tetragonal (BCT) crystal structure respectively. ASTM standard tensile tests were performed for both materials, revealing that DP980-B has higher work hardening and larger total elongation than DP980-T. Standard hole piercing and subsequent hole expansion and extrusion tests were also performed. The critical hole expansion ratio (HER) of hole pierced sheet at different nominal clearances, on the other hand, show an opposite trend: the HER of DP980-T almost doubles that of DP980-B. This indicates the tensile ductility and edge stretchability are determined by different mechanisms due to different deformation modes. The ductility of sheet metal during uniaxial tension is determined by deformation instability, i.e. necking, due to less constraint at the region of deformation and fracture will occur quickly after necking. The contribution of post-necking deformation to the total elongation is insignificant for the high strength grades such as DP980 steels. The ductility during hole-expansion, however, is mainly determined by material fracture behavior that is dependent on phase property disparity and material intrinsic fracture parameters. With the individual phase properties for both DP steels determined by in situ tensile tests under high energy X-ray diffraction, the results show that DP980-T steel has lower property disparities between the two phases than DP980-B steel, due to the tempering process. This explains why the DP980-T steel has higher HER than DP980-B steel: lower phase disparity will lead to less local deformation during loading. The higher work hardening rate for DP980-B steel contributes to its higher uniform elongation compared with DP980-T steel based on the maximum load condition of deformation instability. An integrated finite element simulation framework for studying hole expansion is also presented here, based on the calculated individual phase properties from the combined high energy x-ray diffraction (HEXRD) and elastic plastic self-consistent modeling. The simulation results correlate well with the experimental results on the HER difference between the two materials.