Prediction of necking in thin sheet metals using an elastic–plastic model coupled with ductile damage and bifurcation criteria

In this paper, the conditions for the occurrence of diffuse and localized necking in thin sheet metals are investigated. The prediction of these necking phenomena is undertaken using an elastic–plastic model coupled with ductile damage, which is then combined with various plastic instability criteria based on bifurcation theory. The bifurcation criteria are first formulated within a general three-dimensional modeling framework, and then specialized to the particular case of plane-stress conditions. Some theoretical relationships or links between the different investigated bifurcation criteria are established, which allows a hierarchical classification in terms of their conservative character in predicting critical necking strains. The resulting numerical tool is implemented into the finite element code ABAQUS/Standard to predict forming limit diagrams, in both situations of a fully three-dimensional formulation and a plane-stress framework. The proposed approach is then applied to the prediction of diffuse and localized necking for a DC06 mild steel material. The predicted forming limit diagrams confirm the above-established theoretical classification, revealing that the general bifurcation criterion provides a lower bound for diffuse necking prediction, while the loss of ellipticity criterion represents an upper bound for localized necking prediction. Some numerical aspects related to the prestrain effect on the development of necking are also investigated, which demonstrates the capability of the present approach in capturing the strain-path changes commonly encountered in complex sheet metal forming operations.