Hole Expansion Performance Assessment of Quenched and Partitioning Steel through a Fully Anisotropic Fracture Modeling

Abstract:

Edge cracking is an essential local formability phenomenon encountered in specific forming operations, such as stretch flanging, which is broadly employed in the automotive industry. However, the prediction of the edge cracks is challenging, and the hole expansion test is widely carried out to detect the edge cracking performance. This research analyzed quenched and partitioned steel (QP), one of the third-generation advanced high-strength steels widely adopted in the automotive industry to replace conventional high-strength steels due to its superior global formability features. However, its local formability has been a bottleneck due to its microstructure nature and shows strong anisotropy dependency. Therefore, a modeling framework is needed that consistently incorporates anisotropy in both plasticity and fracture. In this study, the hole expansion performance of QP1000 steel was evaluated through a fully anisotropic fracture model based on the Yld2004-18p anisotropic yield criterion and the DF2016 ductile fracture model. To this end, the standard uniaxial tensile tests in seven material orientations, the bulge test, and the tensile tests of different fracture samples were conducted. These samples were picked out to characterize the broad spectrum of loading conditions and cut in rolling, diagonal, and transverse directions to establish the fully anisotropic fracture model. It was seen that the edge cracking metrics, which are the hole expansion ratio and the fracture initiation zone, were accurately captured by the developed model.

• Periodical: Solid State Phenomena (Volume 388)
• Pages: 153-162
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-IUrc7E
• Online since: April 2026
• Authors: Toros Arda Aksen*, Zinan Li, Junhe Lian
• Keywords: Edge Crack, Fully Anisotropic Fracture Model, Local Formability, QP Steel

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