Finite element analysis to determine the role of porosity in dynamic localization and fragmentation: Application to porous microstructures obtained from additively manufactured materials

In this paper, we have performed a microstructurally-informed finite element analysis on the effect of porosity on the formation of multiple necks and fragments in ductile thin rings subjected to dynamic expansion. For that purpose, we have characterized by X-ray tomography the porous microstructure of 4 different additively manufactured materials (aluminium alloy AlSi10Mg, stainless steel 316L, titanium alloy Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718L) with initial void volume fractions ranging from ≈0.0007% to ≈ 2%, and pore sizes varying between ≈ 6 μm and ≈110 μm. Three-dimensional analysis of the tomograms has revealed that the voids generally have nearly spherical shape and quite homogeneous spatial distribution in the bulk of the four materials tested. The pore size distributions quantified from the tomograms have been characterized using a Log-normal statistical function, which has been used in conjunction with a Force Biased Algorithm that replicates the experimentally observed random spatial distribution of the voids, to generate ring expansion finite element models in ABAQUS/Explicit (2016) which include actual porous microstructures representative of the materials tested. We have modeled the materials behavior using von Mises plasticity, and we have carried out finite element calculations for both elastic perfectly-plastic materials, and materials which show strain hardening, strain rate hardening and temperature softening effects. Moreover, we have assumed that fracture occurs when a critical value of effective plastic strain is reached. The finite element calculations have been performed for expansion velocities ranging from 50 m/s to 500 m/s. A key point of this investigation is that we have established individualized correlations between the main features of the porous microstructure (i.e. initial void volume fraction, average void size and maximum void size) and the number of necks and fragments formed in the calculations. In addition, we have brought out the effect of the porous microstrucure and inertia on the distributions of neck and fragment sizes. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper ever considering actual porous microstructures to investigate the role of material defects in multiple localization and dynamic fragmentation of ductile metallic materials.