FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF STRETCH FORMABILITY OF SUPER DUPLEX STAINLESS STEEL SHEET

The study of deformation and stretching limits are of considerable practical interest in the sheet metal forming operations. Stretchability of sheet material is commonly evaluated by ball punch deformation test. It evaluates the ability of a sheet material to undergo biaxial stretching without fracture. In this study, ASTM E643 ? 84, the ball punch deformation test was used to evaluate the stretch formability of Super Duplex Stainless Steel in terms of depth of punch penetration up to fracture. A finite element based software Dynaform/Lsdyna was used in the present work to simulate the stretch forming process. The results of simulation and the experiments were compared. The results can be used to gain insights into material behavior under production in press forming conditions and can help the design engineers to reduce the number of die tryouts.