On the Formability/Instability of Stretch-Forming Sheet Metals

Manufacturing processes of aircraft, automobile and electronic components involve a lot of stretch-forming of sheet metals. The processes contain a large amount of straining which, in turn, may lead to plastic instabilities such as necking, slip formation or shear banding. Understanding the instability phenomenon requires the development of constitutive description of material characterizing the plastic instability and post uniform deformation behavior. The previous work on plastic instability usually lacks the experimental verification of the theoretical models. This may be owing to the complexity involved in designing a suitable experimental methodology for accurate measurements of strain in the locally deforming zone as the deformation progresses rather rapidly once the local neck sets in. A review of the important methodologies and analyses that were and are used in investigating instability of sheet metal in uniaxial tension is presented in this paper. Some supporting results are also presented.