On the effects of predeformation on work hardening of ultra-low-carbon sheet steel

Predeformation affects the work-hardening behavior of sheet metals in sequential forming operations by producing various strain histories in different parts of the sheet. Several investigators have reported the effects of two-stage deformation on the behavior of sheet metals, particularly justification has been presented on face-centered cubic (fcc) alloys. However, the works on low-carbon ferritic steels are not conclusive. This article reports some new findings of the effects of two modes of predeformation on the subsequent stress-strain relationship in ultra-low-carbon sheet steels. The details of a laboratory test system are presented along with methods used to reduce the data. The effect of the stability ratio, a measure of the degree to which the interstitial atoms are free, on the hardening rate at second-stage of deformation was studied. For stabilized sheet steels, it was found that changes in strain path from equibiaxial stretching to uniaxial tension cause an increase in the flow stress relative to the flow stress at similar effective strain in continued monotonic. For unstabilized sheet steels, a significant increase in the flow stress was not observed with either equibiaxial prestraining or cold rolling and equibiaxial stretching.