Quantitative study of the Bauschinger effect in high-strength low-strain-hardening materials for metal forming applications

In this paper, an experimental study of the Bauschinger effect is carried out in high-strength, low-strain-hardening materials. Pre-heat-treated ESW105 steel, which has a high initial yield stress with negligible strain-hardening capability, is employed in this study. For the sake of comparison, the Bauschinger effect is also investigated in SCM435 steel, which has typical strain-hardening capability. The Bauschinger effect tends to decrease the forming load during cylinder compression of an ESW105 workpiece initially elongated via a drawing process with proper reduction of area, but does not contribute to forming load reduction in the case of SCM435, even under the same conditions, since it is surpassed by the strain-hardening capability of the material.