Flow behaviors of various metals under tensile load

Abstract The influence of flow behaviors on the results of finite element (FE) analyses of metal-forming processes is dominant, even though it varies with strain hardening and softening phenomena. However, obtaining a flow curve with sufficient accuracy is not easy, particularly at large strains. Among various well-known methods of obtaining flow curves, tensile testing-based method is effective to obtain flow curves at large strains at room temperature. It is believed that the strain hardening behavior at large strains during the tensile test was not fully known. In this study, the flow curves, previously obtained using the combined tensile test and finite element method (FEM) approach, are classified as four categories, including monotonic strain hardening function, double-curvature strain hardening function, strain hardening-perfectly-plastic function, and perfectly-plastic-strain softening function. The tensile test characteristics of each type are investigated using its FE predictions, revealing that the specific type of a material can be identified by the tensile test.