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Title

RATE AND TEMPERATURE DEPENDENT MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR AND MODELING OF AL-CU ALLOY SYSTEM

Creator

Tran, Henry

Date

2011-12-19, 2011-12

Description

Deformation of materials in army applications such as fragment impact, projectile penetration and air blast/shock waves involves high strain...
Show moreDeformation of materials in army applications such as fragment impact, projectile penetration and air blast/shock waves involves high strain rates, large strains, high pressures and rapid changes in temperature, where overall performance ultimately depends on the evolution of flow stress, failure initiation and propagation, generally in the form of adiabatic shear banding (ASB), under these severe loading conditions. Some of 2XXX series aluminum-copper (Al-Cu) alloys such as Al 2519-T87 have been successfully used in Lightweight Armored Vehicles in the U.S. Army because of their good ballistic properties. More recently, an Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy designated as Al 2139-T8 has emerged in 2004 as a strong candidate in damage critical applications with higher strength and high-strain-rate performance than its predecessors. Its better ballistic performance is believed to be due to the underlying microstructure. The objective of this study is to investigate mechanical and deformation behavior of Al-Cu material system to develop a fundamental understanding of the effect of composition and microstructural features on overall dynamic behavior. To this end, a systematic approach is adopted to start from single crystal Al and move towards polycrystalline Al, then Al-Cu, and all the way to Al-Cu-Mg-Ag system. Current thesis study constitutes a part of this ongoing work and, therefore, only covers single crystal Al ([001] and [111] directions), polycrystalline Al, and Al-0.1%Cu. Compressive mechanical response of each one of these materials has been investigated in a wide strain rate range that covers quasi-static (from 10-4 to 100 s-1) and dynamic (from 102 to 104 s-1) strain rate regimes. With the exception of single crystal Al (because of limited supplies), additional experiments have been conducted at 120C and 220C within the same strain rate range to understand their thermal softening behavior in varying strain rate regimes. Based on and driven by experimental results, a modified Johnson-Cook model is proposed to describe their rate and temperature dependent constitutive behavior. Finally, in order to investigate susceptibility of these materials and varying microstructures to adiabatic shear localization the two specimen geometries, namely “top hat” and “shear-compression specimen”, have been evaluated. In this evaluation, emphasis is placed upon reliable quantification of strain field within the gage section. Shear compression specimen has been identified to be the best candidate to use in future studies that will explore the tendency of each one of these materials to failure by adiabatic shear banding.
M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, December 2011
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