Damage and failure of ductile metals under non-proportional load paths: experiments, modeling and numerical simulation

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Brünig, Professor of Structural Mechanics, has successfully applied for the project "Schädigung und Versagen duktiler Metalle unter nichtproportionalen Lastpfaden: Experimente, Modellbildung und numerische Simulationen“ (Damage and failure of ductile metals under non-proportional load paths: experiments, modeling and numerical simulations) at the German Research Foundation.

Duration: 2017 - 2023
Sponsor: German Research Foundation - research grant

Current developments in lightweight construction are forcing higher and higher demands on the materials used. Therefore, the question of detailed knowledge of their properties must arise in order to be able to use efficient calculations to make a prediction of the load-bearing capacity, safety and service life of components and innovative lightweight structures under the expected load conditions. For this reason, systematic experimental investigations with reproducible tests, especially with non-proportional load paths that cover all relevant stress states, are essential. For this purpose, experiments with biaxially stressed metallic test specimens are carried out in order to be able to analyze damage and failure mechanisms for various non-proportional load paths and a wide range of stress states up to final failure.

In addition, numerical simulations are carried out on the microscale in order to be able to determine parameters dependent on the stress state and the stress history that cannot be derived from the experiments. Based on this, a damage and failure model is proposed to be used to analyze the deformation and failure behavior of ductile metals under non-proportional loading conditions.

The main scientific objective is to define biaxial standard experiments with non-proportional load paths to be examined, which are used to uncover damage and failure mechanisms for different stress histories in safety and durability analysis in structural engineering, aerospace technology and vehicle and shipbuilding can become.