An accurate investigation of the mechanical response and damage model of aluminum 7068

Abstract

The promising combination of high strength, high toughness, low density and corrosion resistivity have made aluminium (Al) alloys the material of choice in various applications, from buildings to aerospace, for decades. Especially, Al 7068 alloy is one of the recently developed materials used mostly in defence and automobile industries due to their exceptional mechanical properties. In this master thesis, the mechanical response and Johnson-Cook damage model of Al 7068-T651 alloy was investigated. Specifically, different Johnson-Cook damage parameters were determined for different application areas considering the maximum, minimum and average results. These damage parameters can be used for accurate Finite Element Analysis simulations. To determine these damage parameters tensile tests were conducted on notched and smooth specimen son both rolling direction and perpendicular to the rolling direction. The notch radius were selected as smooth, 0.4 mm, 0.8 mm and 2 mm to provide different stress triaxiality values and observe the mechanical response at these triaxiality values. Tensile tests were repeated seven times to obtain the accurate results. The final cross-sectional areas of fractured specimens were calculated through optical microscopy. The effects of stress triaxiality factor and rolling direction on the mechanical properties of Al 7068-T651 alloy were successfully investigated. All damage parameters were calculated via LevenbergMarquardt optimization method. Overall, three different Johnson-Cook damage parameters based on minimum, average and maximum equivalent strain values were calculated. These Johnson-Cook ii damage parameters can be utilized for the accurate damage simulations of different applications in Finite Element Analysis, which is a computational technique and is used to obtain approximate solution of several engineering problems