The Second Blind Sandia Fracture Challenge: improved MBW model predictions for different strain rates

Sandia National Laboratories have carried out the Sandia Fracture Challenge in order to evaluate ductile damage mechanics models under conditions which are similar to those in the industrial practice. In this challenge, the prediction of load-deformation behavior and crack path of a sample that is designed for the competition under two loading rates is required with given data: the material Ti–6Al–4V, and raw data of tensile tests and V-notch tests under two loading rates. Within the stipulated time frame 14 teams from USA and Europe gave their predictions to the organizer. In this work, the approach applied by Team Aachen is presented in detail. The modified Bai–Wierzbicki (MBW) model is used in the framework of the Second Blind Sandia Fracture Challenge (SFC2). The model is made up by a stress-state dependent plasticity core that is extended to cope with strain rate and temperature effects under adiabatic conditions. It belongs to the group of coupled phenomenological ductile damage mechanics models, but it assumes a strain threshold value for the instant of ductile damage initiation. The initial guess of material parameters for the selected material Ti–6Al–4V was taken from an in-house database available at the authors’ institutes, but parameters are optimized in order to meet the validation data provided. This paper reveals that the model predictions can be improved significantly compared to the original submission of results at the end of SFC2 by two simple measures. On the one hand, the function to express the critical damage as well as the amount of energy dissipation between ductile damage initiation and complete ductile fracture were derived more carefully from the data provided by the challenge’s organizer. On the other hand, the experimental set-up of the challenge experiment was better described in the geometrical representation used for the numerical simulations. These two simple modifications allowed for a precise prediction of crack path and estimation of force–displacement behavior. The improved results show the general ability of the MBW model to predict the strain rate sensitivity of ductile fracture at various states of stress.