Evaluation of anisotropic yield functions for aluminum sheets

The anisotropic behaviour of some rolled aluminum alloys is investigated using the phenomenological approach via some of the recently proposed 3-D yield functions. The directional variations of the yield stress and the so-called R-values in the plane of the sheet are predicted using the 3-D yield functions and the results are compared to previously reported experimental measurements. The hardening properties of the alloys examined are extracted from the experimental uniaxial curves along the rolling direction (RD). The forming limit curves are produced using the Marciniak and Kuczynski (Marciniak, Z., Kuczynski, K., 1967 Limit strains in the process of stret-forming sheet metals. Int. J. Mech. Sci. 9, 609-620) approach and the predictions of different yield functions are compared to the experimental curves. In general, although the refinements incorporated to the yield function proposals in chronological order produced better agreement with the experimental observations (at the expense of some complexity in the formulation), the overall performance of each criteria examined could nevertheless vary with the type of the application, as can be anticipated from the phenomenological nature of the approach. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.