Effect of path-dependent plasticity on springback in reverse bending and its application to roll forming

•Bauschinger effect and cross-loading effects in martensitic high-strength steel are identified with a distortional plasticity model.•There exists a specific strain at which distortional plasticity and conventional isotropic models predict identical springback due to the secondary Bauschinger effect.•Reverse bending reduces the amount of springback regardless of the Bauschinger effect.•Crashworthiness of a roll-formed part is reduced when the Bauschinger effect and cross-loading effect are considered. This study investigates springback behavior in martensitic advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) undergoing pure bending and reverse bending sequences. The comparison between a conventional isotropic hardening model and the Homogeneous Anisotropic Hardening (HAH20) model had been made, which accounts for non-isotropic hardening effects. Both models were calibrated using uniaxial tensile, cyclic, and loading–unloading tests. The results show that the HAH20 model predicts a higher initial springback compared to the isotropic model. However, reverse bending significantly reduces the overall springback for both models due to a minimized recovery moment. In scenarios with reverse bending, a specific strain exists where both models predict identical springback due to the secondary Bauschinger effect in tensile stress. This phenomenon is also observed in roll forming, a sequential bending process that incorporates reverse bending steps. Experimental findings from roll forming confirm a decrease in springback after the reverse bending stage. Furthermore, the study explores the impact of non-isotropic hardening on the part crashworthiness with the calibration of cross-loading effects. The Bauschinger effect and cross-loading contraction were found to reduce the maximum crash load by 6.2%.