Because most structures are subjected to transient strain-rate loading, an experimental study was conducted to investigate the stress-strain behaviors of an aluminum alloy undergoing varying strain-rate loading. To this end, uniaxial tensile loading was applied to coupons of dog-bone shape such that each coupon underwent two or three different strain-rates, i.e., one rate after another. As a basis, a series of single-strain-rate tests was also conducted with strain-rates of 0.1–10.0 s−1. When the material experienced multistrain-rate loading, the stress-strain curves were significantly different from any single-strain-rate stress-strain curve. The strain-rate history affected the stress-strain curves under multistrain-rate loading. As a result, some simple averaging of single-strain-rate curves did not predict the actual multistrain-rate stress-strain curve properly. Furthermore, the fracture strain under multistrain-rate loading was significantly different from that under any single-strain-rate case. Depending on the applied strain-rates and their sequences, the former was much greater or less than the latter. A technique was proposed based on the residual plastic strain and plastic energy density in order to predict the fracture strain under multistrain-rate loading. The predicted fracture strains generally agreed well with the experimental data. Another observation that was made was that the unloading stress-strain curve was not affected by the previous strain-rate history.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.