A VFM-based identification method for the dynamic anisotropic plasticity of sheet metals

The anisotropic plasticity of sheet metals at high strain rates is a critical factor that can influence the fabrication and service safety of engineering parts under dynamic loading conditions. The characterization of dynamic anisotropic plasticity using conventional testing methods usually suffers from the limitations resulted from the homogeneous deformation state and one-dimensional wave propagation preconditions. In this work, a highly efficient approach is proposed for the simultaneous identification of the anisotropic yielding and hardening constitutive parameters at high strain rates based on the heterogeneous impact test and the virtual fields method. First, the identification framework that combines the selected anisotropic plasticity constitutive models and the principle of virtual work concerning the dynamic kinematics term is introduced. In order to validate the proposed identification algorithm, simulated virtual impact tests were performed to provide reference parameters and unpolluted inertial acceleration/strain/strain rate field data. These data were then processed to extract the target dynamic anisotropic parameters. The results show that using the double-notched impact configuration and the proposed identification algorithm the selected anisotropic yielding and hardening parameters can be reasonably identified from a single impact test, significantly simplifying the testing procedures compared to conventional dynamic testing methods. Also, the effects of different processing parameters and influential factors on the identification accuracy have been investigated. From the sensitivity studies, the preferred ranges of the processing parameters have been determined and the robustness of the proposed method within these verified.