Innovation of the “Cut-Clamp-Play” Concept for Robust and Efficient Sheet Metal Material Characterization

Material Testing 2.0 (MT2.0) couples full‑field deformation measurements (Digital Image Correlation, DIC) with inverse identification methods (Virtual Fields Method, VFM) to extract constitutive parameters from a small number of heterogeneous experiments. This paper presents the Cut‑Clamp‑Play concept: an integrated industrial MT2.0 solution that unifies specimen design, automated testing hardware, and a computationally efficient VFM identification chain to deliver fast, user‑friendly sheet‑metal characterization. A perforated cruciform specimen is optimized for parameter identifiability of the Yld2000‑2d anisotropic yield function and used in a single biaxial test. A working prototype has been built at KU Leuven and used to collect representative DIC data; the measured displacement/strain response is double‑symmetric, confirming correct mechanical operation. Projected and early prototype results indicate that the Cut‑Clamp‑Play approach can reduce operator actions by roughly 70% and produce identification results within one hour for typical sheet‑metal cases, while further work is required to make the fully automated “Play” stage robust for industrial deployment.