Experimental investigation of heterogeneous mechanical tests

The virtualization of sheet metal forming processes requires a precise numerical model with an accurate description of the material behavior that is classically obtained by carrying out quasi-homogeneous mechanical tests. However, several alternatives to this time-consuming task are under study. Heterogeneous tests can provide a large quantity of mechanical information in a single experiment and, therefore, their potential needs to be investigated. This work aims to present an advanced mechanical test designed by topology optimization under experimental investigation. A numerical design methodology is described, leading to a specimen geometry that is subjected experimentally to uniaxial tensile loading up to rupture. A dual-phase DP600 steel is used. During the test, the strain field is extracted from the specimen surface using a stereo digital image correlation system, and the richness of the mechanical information is further analyzed.