Experimental Mechanics
DOI 10.1007/s11340-010-9385-8
Experimental and Numerical Analysis of an In-Plane Shear
Specimen Designed for Ductile Fracture Studies
F. Gao & L. Gui & Z. Fan
Received: 28 November 2009 / Accepted: 28 June 2010
# Society for Experimental Mechanics 2010
Abstract An in-plane shear specimen made of dual phase
steel designed for ductile fracture studies is presented and
then analyzed experimentally and numerically. In the
experiment, digital image correlation (DIC) technique is
utilized to measure the deformation of the specimen. Based
on the implicit nonlinear FE solver Abaqus/Standard,
numerical analysis of the specimen is performed by using
plane stress and solid elements respectively. The elongation
of the specimen’s gauge length and the shear strain
distribution within the shear zone are compared between
the experimental and numerical results and a general good
agreement is obtained. Thereafter, based on calculated
results, the stress state of the shear zone is investigated in
detail. It is shown that the shear stress is dominant within
the shear zone despite of the emergence of normal stresses.
The deformation is concentrated in the shear zone, where
the incipient fracture is most likely to occur. The stress
triaxiality and the Lode parameter at the fracture initiation
are found to be maintained at a relatively low level, which
implies that the stress state achieved by the specimen is
close to pure shear. The present study demonstrates that the
proposed in-plane shear specimen is suitable for investiga-
tion of the fracture behavior of high strength materials
under shear stress states.
Keywords In-plane shear specimen . Fracture . Dual phase
steel . Digital image correlation . Numerical simulation
F. Gao : L. Gui (*) : Z. Fan
State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy,
Department of Automotive Engineering, Tsinghua University,
Beijing 100084, China
e-mail: gui@tsinghua.edu.cn
Introduction
Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) consisting of Dual
Phase (DP) steel, TRansformation Induced Plasticity
(TRIP) steel and Complex Phase (CP) steel have a plastic
hardening process relying on phase transformation. The
biggest advantage of AHSS lies in its high strength, which
would likely reduce automotive mass if it were applied to
auto-vehicles [1]. However, compared with conventional
deep drawing steels, the ductility is poor, which can be
exhibited from the short elongations at fracture. Frequent
failures due to fracture have been observed during the
forming processes. Therefore, the fracture investigations of
AHSS have become one of the hottest topics for current
automotive lightweight researchers [2].
Shear tests are of great importance since they are widely
used to investigate the shear modulus and shear strength of
materials. The traditional shear test is performed by rotating a
cylindrical specimen through a torsion testing machine,
although this procedure cannot be applied to sheet metals.
The simple shear test method seems to be an effective
technique for evaluating the mechanical properties of planar
specimens [3, 4]. In this test the specimens have a simple
rectangular shape and are easy to prepare. This test requires a
special device which mainly consists of two rigid parts with
one piece remaining fixed and the other piece moving in the
vertical direction. During testing, the planar specimen is
gripped between the two parts and one side of the specimen
remains stable while the other side moves up or down.
However, premature fracture may occur by cracking along the
gripping lines subjected to tension [4]. Iosipescu [5]
presented a new method to achieve the pure shear state by
imposing asymmetrical four-point bending to a notched
planar specimen. This approach has been widely used to test
composite materials [6, 7]. However, the uniformity of the
 Exp Mech

thickness. First, the specimen made of DP800 is investigated

experimentally by a digital image correlation (DIC) technique
which is convenient to measure the displacement and strain
fields. Second, by means of the implicit FE solver Abaqus/
Standard, numerical analysis of the specimen is carried out to
accurately investigate the shear stress distribution and all
in-plane stress components’ development. In order to
study the shear specimen separately, the strain hardening
parameters for FE modeling is obtained from uniaxial
tensile tests.

(a) (b) Experiments

Fig. 1 Experimental set-up for the first group specimen tests: (a)
testing machine and the specimen; (b) extensometer and the specimen Uniaxial Tensile Tests

DP800 supplied by Swedish Steel Works is considered in this

shear stress between the notch tips was found to be highly study, which is identical to the material used by Tarigopula et
dependent on the elastic properties of the orthotropic al [10]. The cold rolled sheet metal possesses a nominal
material [8]. thickness of 2.0 mm. According to GB/T228-2002 standard,
Bao and Wierzbicki [9] displayed a shear specimen with a the uniaxial tensile specimens are designed and cut from a
complex shape during fracture investigations of an alumi- DP800 sheet with the longitudinal direction along the sheet’s
num alloy. The shear zone of the specimen is concentrated in rolling direction. The specimens only in the rolling direction
the butterfly section with a reduced thickness used to create a are considered because Tarigopula et al [10] has proven that
low stress triaxiality state. The disadvantage of the specimen this kind of material exhibits weak plastic anisotropic
is that the reduced thickness is difficult to machine for thin behavior. A total of two groups of the specimens are
sheet metals and will possibly introduce damage or micro prepared and each group contains three duplicate samples,
cracks on the surface of the shear zone, which may be which are denoted as ‘H11, H12, H13’ and ‘H14, H15,
detrimental for incipient fracture judgment. H16’respectively. One group’s deformation is measured with
Tarigopula et al [10] designed a new shear specimen the extensometer and that of the other group with DIC
geometry based on extensive FE optimizations and demon- technique so that we are able to evaluate the accuracy of the
strated the use of the specimen to identify strain hardening DIC method. The DIC technique will be used to measure
parameters for DP800 steel at large strains. As we know, a deformation of the following in-plane shear specimen and
stress state can be characterized by the stress triaxiality and good accuracy of the method will guarantee the validity of
the Lode parameter. The stress triaxiality is defined as the the test data.
ratio of the mean stress and equivalent stress, and has been The uniaxial tensile test is conducted on a SHIMADZU
found to be an imperative factor influencing the growth of testing machine with a load capacity of 50 kN. In tests of
micro voids which lead to macro cracks [11–13]. The Lode
parameter is defined by the third stress invariant, which
measures the effects of deviatonic stresses. The relation
function between the stress triaxiality and the Lode parameter
under plane stress states has been derived that it’s a third
order parabola [14]. In the in-plane pure shear state, both the
stress triaxiality and the Lode parameter equal zero. However,
this pure shear state is difficult to maintain in shear tests.
From the failure parameter data displayed by Tarigopula et al
[10], it was noticed that the stress triaxiality increases to 0.23,
which means the stress state during the later stage of
deformation gradually becomes far from pure shear.
Based on the work of Bao [9, 12] and Tarigopula et al [10],
the present study shows another in-plane shear specimen with
a different shear zone which is used to obtain relatively low
stress triaxiality and Lode parameter without reduction in Fig. 2 Experimental set-up for the second group specimen tests
Exp Mech
Fig. 3 Geometry of the in-plane
shear specimen: (a) geometrical
dimensions; (b) magnification of
the shear zone x2
x1
the first group specimens (Number: H11, H12, H13),
Epsilon 3542-INS extensometer is employed to measure
the elongation of the 50 mm gauge length of the specimen,
as shown in Fig. 1. The specimen is stretched under
displacement control with an elongation velocity of 1 mm/
min, corresponding to a strain rate of 0.0003/s. The testing
machine documents the correlation curves between the
applied force and elongation, which will be used to
determine the strain hardening parameters for DP800.
Elastic parameters such as Young’s modulus, E, and
Poisson’s ratio, ν, are precisely obtained by the strain
rosette which is attached to the surface of the gauge length
beforehand.
In tests of the second group specimens (Number: H14,
H15, H16), the DIC technique has been utilized to measure
the displacement and strain variations of the specimen. As
shown in Fig. 2, two digital cameras (DC) are arranged,
which are identified as DC1 and DC2 respectively. DC1 is
95 .3mm
Fig. 4 Three in-plane shear specimens
(a)
A O
(b)
placed normal to one surface of the specimen and acquires
an image of 1376×1035 pixels with 256 grey levels, which
includes the deformation of the gauge length 50.0 mm. The
function of DC1 is identical to the extensometer in Fig. 1
(b). DC2 is placed normal to the other surface and
employed to capture the images of a local area, so that we
gain the longitudinal strain variations accurately. The two
digital cameras start working simultaneously and acquire
one image every 2 s.
Shear Tests
Based on numerous FE calculations, the final geometry of
the in-plane shear specimen for DP800 is obtained, as
shown in Fig. 3. The shear zone concentrates on the center
of the specimen and utilizes the butterfly shape presented
by Bao and Wierzbicki [9]. Compared with the design by
Bao [9], the biggest difference is that the shear zone is
unsymmetrical with respect to the x1-axis. As seen from
Fig. 3(b), two concave sides of the shear zone move
Fig. 5 Experimental set-up for shear tests
 Exp Mech

1200
20

True stress /MPa

900
15
Load f/KN

H11 fd
H12 fd 600
10
H13 fd
H14 fd 300
5 H15 fd
H13 test
H16 fd fitted curve
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3
Elongation d/mm True strain

Fig. 6 Applied force versus elongation for the six uniaxial tensile Fig. 8 Experimental and fitted curves of the true stress versus true
samples strain for DP800

1.0 mm along the x2-axis up and down respectively. The
extreme point ‘A’ of the concave side has a horizontal
distance of 2.5 mm with the center point ‘O’ of the shear
zone. The above mentioned design results in the shear zone
having a nominal length of 5.0 mm along the x1-axis of the
specimen. The shear zone always undergoes a rotation
during the loading process, which will increase the tensile
stress components. However, the tensile stresses are not
needed. So the two offset concave sides are introduced in
promise of guaranteeing the shear stress and meanwhile
repressing the tensile stresses.
Following the geometry shown in Fig. 3, three duplicate
samples are cut from DP800 sheet with the x1-axis along
the rolling direction and designated as ‘H31, H32, H33’
respectively, as illustrated by Fig. 4. A gauge length of
95.3 mm has been marked on the surface of the samples.
Shear tests are carried out on an electronic universal
testing machine WDW with a maximum load of 100 kN.
One end of the specimen is fixed and the other end is
stretched at a speed of 0.5 mm/min. The DIC technique has
been utilized to measure the displacement and strain field of
the specimen. As displayed in Fig. 5, two digital cameras
0.10
strain from H13
strain from H14 by DIC
Longitudinal true strain
(DC) are arranged, which are identified as DC1 and DC2
respectively. DC1 is placed normal to one surface of the
specimen and acquires an image size of 114 mm×86 mm,
which contains the deformation information of the gauge
length of 95.3 mm. The function of DC1 is identical to a
large range scale extensometer, and thus the elongation of
the gauge length can be obtained. The image obtained by
DC1 is digitized into a sample of 1376×1035 pixels with
256 grey levels and then stored into a computer for further
processing. DC2 is placed normal to the other surface of the
specimen and employed to capture the images of the shear
zone, which are helpful in accurately studying the strain
field of the shear zone. Like DC1, DC2 also digitizes the
captured images into samples of 1376×1035 pixels with
256 grey levels and stores them into a computer. The two
digital cameras start working simultaneously that is,
acquiring one image every 2 s.
Digital Image Correlation
DIC is a non-contact optical technique used to measure the
deformation field of an in-plane object. It obtains the
measurement data by matching the grey intensity distribu-
tion of two sequential acquired images taken ‘before’ and
‘after’ deformation, which are considered as the reference
image and deformed image respectively. The light intensity

strain from H15 by DIC
strain from H16 by DIC
0.05
at the point (x1, x2) in the reference image can be expressed
by the grey matrix, G(x1, x2), over a selected subset. The
point (x1, x2) moves to a new location after deformation and
is referred as the point ( x1’, x2’ ) in the deformed image, the

Table 1 Mechanical property parameters for DP800 from uniaxial

0.00 tensile tests
0 1 2 3
Elongation d/mm E /GPa σ0.2 /MPa ν K /MPa n

Fig. 7 Comparison of the longitudinal true strain derived from the test 210 556 0.3 1185.4 0.1179
date by extensometer and DIC
Exp Mech

Fig. 9 Sequential images

captured by DC1 for the
in-plane shear sample ‘H32’

(a) t=90s (b) t=260s (c) t=346s close to fracture

light intensity of which can be described as G’ ( x1’, x2’ ). from the position by minimizing S. Thereafter, the
By searching the position of G’ ( x1’, x2’ ) that mostly deformation gradient tensor F can be determined by the
resembles the original intensity G(x1, x2), the in-plane following definitions [17],
deformation measurements can be detected. The correlation
coefficient S is formulated to describe the similarity degree
@u @u @v @v
between G(x1, x2) and G’ ( x1’, x2’ ) as follows [15, 16], F11 ¼ @x1 þ 1; F12 ¼ @x2 F21 ¼ @x1 ; F22 ¼ @x2 þ1
ð3Þ
P 0 0 0 
Gðx1 ; x2 Þ»G x1 ; x2 Different strain definitions may be used to measure the
S ¼ 1  qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P P  0  0 0 2 ð1Þ
deformation. Here we make use of logarithmic strains,
ðGðx1 ; x2 ÞÞ2 » G x1 ; x2
whose matrix εis expressed by the following formulations
ignoring the deformation in thickness
If the motion of the object relative to the camera is
parallel to the image plane, then the coordinates (x1, x2) and " ¼ lnðl1 Þn1 nT1 þ lnðl2 Þn2 nT2 ð4Þ
( x1’, x2’ ) are related by
where li and ni (i=1, 2) are the eigenvalue and the
0
@u @u corresponding unit eigenvector of the right Cauchy-Green
x1 ; ¼ x1 þ u þ Δx1 þ @x1 Δx2 @x2
0
@v @v ð2Þ deformation tensor C, namely F T F[18].
x2 ¼ x2 þ v þ @x 1
Δx 1 þ @x2 Δx2

where u and v are the displacements for the subset centers Experimental Results
in the x1 and x2 directions respectively; @u=@x1 ; @u=@x2 ;
@v=@x1 ; @v=@x2 are the first-order displacement gradients of Uniaxial Tensile Tests
the reference subset; Δ x1, Δ x2 are the distances from point
( x 1 , x 2 ) t o t h e s u b s e t c e n t e r. T h e u , v a n d Resulting from the measurement range limitation of the
@u=@x1 ; @u=@x2 ; @v=@x1 ; @v=@x2 are detected iteratively extensometer, only a 3 mm elongation is acquired in the

Fig. 10 Sequential images

captured by DC2 for the
in-plane shear sample ‘H32’

(a) t=90s (b) t=260s (c) t=346s close to fracture


8
6 fracture
Load f/ KN
4
H31 fd
2 H32 fd
H33 fd
0 before the occurrence of incipient fracture. Referring to the
0 1 2 3 4 5
Elongation d/mm
Fig. 11 Relation curves between the applied force and the elongation
of the gauge length for three in-plane shear samples
uniaxial tensile tests. In addition, by processing the images
captured by two cameras, we are able to obtain the
elongation of the gauge length and the strain variations
during loading. Then the test data can be compared to each
other. First, the curves between the applied force and the
elongation of the 50 mm gauge length for the six samples
measured by two methods are compared and plotted
together in Fig. 6. We can see a good agreement is
obtained. Second, the true strains along the longitudinal
direction derived from the test data by the extensometer and
measured by DIC are also compared, as shown in Fig. 7.
It’s found they are consistent fairly well. From the two
points discussed above, we may conclude that the used DIC
method is accurate and can provide an effective tool to
investigate the deformation of the in-plane shear specimen
in the following section.
Based on the results in Fig. 6, the relationship of true
stress versus true strain characterizing the strain hardening
for DP800 can be determined according to their definitions.
A power function σ=Kεn has been adopted to fit the curve
of true stress versus true strain, where K is the hardening
coefficient and n denotes hardening exponent. Fig. 8
depicts the two curves of true stress versus true strain from
the tests and fitted results. There is no noteworthy yield
point observed and the yield stress is determined at a value
of 556 MPa corresponding to 0.2% plastic strain. Table 1
presents the tested elastic parameters and fitted plastic
hardening parameters for DP800.
Fig. 12 The solid FE model for
the in-plane shear specimen
x2
x1
Exp Mech
Shear Tests
A total of about 173 images were captured for each in-pane
shear specimen. Using the sample ‘H32’ as an example,
Fig. 9 describes the deformation evolution of the specimen
in form of sequential images captured by DC1 and
correspondingly Fig. 10 shows the deformation process of
the shear zone by DC2. From the Figs. 9 and 10, it can be
observed that the shear zone comes through a large rotation
in-plane shear specimen designed by Bao [9] and Tarigopula
et al [10], the rotation of the shear zone is also detected and
seems unavoidable in this kind of shear specimen. However,
it should be recognized that the rotation would induce the
stress components of the shear zone changing and increasing
rotation would lead to larger normal stress components
which may be detrimental for the state dominated by shear
stress. A detailed analysis on the stress distribution of the
shear zone is studied accurately by using numerical
calculations. Furthermore, no thinning phenomenon induced
by plastic necking is observed, which implies the specimen
maintains a plane stress state during the deformation.
In order to obtain the relationship between the applied
force and the elongation of the gauge length 95.3 mm, the
DIC algorithm is employed to process the images acquired
by DC1. The curves obtained for the three samples are
shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen that the curves transit
smoothly without any apparent drop before fracture, and
the elongation corresponding to the incipient fracture is
approximately 3.86 mm (Figs. 12 and 13).
By processing the images acquired by DC2, the shear
strain distribution within the shear zone can be determined,
which are displayed in Fig. 14. We can see that the shear
strain distribution band goes through a finite rotation. It
agrees with what we observed in Fig. 10.
Numerical Simulation
The implicit solver of non-linear finite element code Abaqus/
Standard is employed to simulate the quasi-static test of the in-
plane shear specimen. The material constitutive equations are
compiled in Table 2. It takes the rate of deformation D and
Jaumann stress rate s rJ as the energy conjugate measures.
Exp Mech
8
6 fracture
Load f/KN
4
H31 fd
2 plane stress fd
solid fd
0 The updated Lagrangian method is made use of to
0 1 2 3 4 5
Elongation d / mm
Fig. 13 Comparison of the curves of the applied load versus the
elongation between experimental and numerical results
Generally the rate of deformation D is decomposed into the
elastic part De and the plastic Dp. Then the s rJ and De are
connected with a four-order tensor C e, which are determined
according to the material elastic modulus E and Poisson’s
ratio v. It assumes that the yield criterion f s; s y ¼ 0 for
DP800 satisfies the classic von Mises criterion, in which the
equivalent stress is von Mises stress. The flow direction of
Dp is defined by an associated flow rule with f(σ,σy). The
relation of σy and "p adopts the mechanical power fitting
results summarized in Table 1 and the plastic hardening is
considered to be isotropic (the anisotropy has also been
proven weak and can be neglected according to the results
provided by Tarigopula et al [10]). The consistency
condition f ¼ 0 must be satisfied at any moment, so an
iterative implicit Euler method is employed to acquire the D
and Cauchy stress tensor σ accurately.
The FE model for the in-plane shear specimen has been
created respectively by plane stress elements and solid
elements. The 3D model of the specimen is meshed by
eight-node solid elements C3D8R with selective reduced
integration. For precision, the mesh in the shear zone is
refined with the element size of 0.25 mm×0.25 mm×
0.4 mm, where 0.4 mm is the dimension of thickness in the
element; and for computational efficiency, the other areas
meshed with a relatively coarse size of 2 mm×2 mm, as can
be seen in Fig. 12. In order to be consistent with the
experimental conditions, the two clevis pins are modeled as
rigid bodies at the holes of the specimen. Two reference
points are respectively assigned to the pins, and their
translation degrees are coupled with those of the
corresponding pin outer surface. Contact conditions between
the pin outer surface and the corresponding hole inner
surface of the specimen have been defined with a friction
coefficient 0.1. In addition, the boundary conditions are
applied on the reference points, where the left point RP2
is fixed and a displacement along the x1-axis is defined
on the right point RP1.
The plane stress FE model for the specimen is
generated by using the four-node elements CPS4R with
selective reduced integration. The reason that the plane
stress element is applicable lies in the no occurrence of
necking phenomenon in the tests. Similar to the solid FE
model, the plane stress FE model refines the mesh
distribution in the shear zone with an element size of
0.25 mm×0.25 mm. The other settings for the plane stress
model resemble those for the solid FE model.
calculate the elastic-plastic response of the in-pane shear
specimen in Abaqus/Standard. The output stress is Cauchy
stress, which represents the true stress state. The output
strain is logarithmic strain and the shear strain is engineering
strain, which equals to two times of the shear tensor strain
defined by equation (4).
Comparison and Discussion
Comparisons between the experimental and numerical
results in terms of the relationships of the applied load and
the elongation and the evolutions of the shear strain within the
shear zone are carried out. Detailed investigations on the shear
zone including the shear stress distribution, the variations of
the three main in-plane stress components, and the variations
of the stress triaxiality and the Lode parameter, are also
performed.
The curves of the applied load versus the elongation
according to both the plane stress model and solid model
analysis for the gauge length 95.3 mm are compared with
experimental results, as depicted in Fig. 13. The shown
three f-d curves coincide very well.
Fig. 14 shows the comparisons of the DIC tested
logarithmic shear strain distribution in the shear zone with
numerical results. From the results, we can see the shear
strain concentrates on the shear zone and the shear strain
distribution band goes through a finite rotation. This
coincides with the observed behavior in Fig. 10. The good
agreement exhibited in Fig. 13 and 14 implies that the FE
analysis conducted in the present study is correct and we
can employ the effective numerical results to make a
detailed study on the deformations of the shear zone.
The shear stress S12 distributions in the shear zone are
vital in order to judge whether or not the in-plane shear
specimen has been designed successfully. The Fig. 15
describes the evolutions of the shear stress S12 distribution
in the butterfly shear zone with elongation, where Fig. 15(c)
reflects the state at the moment close to fracture. From the
contours it can be observed that the shear stress S12
concentrates on the center area of the shear zone and
distributes uniformly in its covering region. The noteworthy
shear effect is exactly what is pursued.
 Exp Mech

Fig. 14 Comparisons of the

DIC tested logarithmic shear DIC result FE result
strain distribution (plotted on the
initial geometry) in the shear
zone with FE numerical results

x1

x2

(a) d=0.25mm

DIC result FE result

x1

x2
(b) d=2.00mm

DIC result FE result

x1

x2
(c) d=3.86mm, close to fracture

Table 2 The material

constitutive equations used in Elastic and plastic decomposition of the rate of deformation D ¼ De þ Dp
FE analysis Relation of Jaumann rate with elastic part of the rate of deformation s rJ ¼ C e : De
   
Plastic yield criterion f s; s y ¼ s ðs Þ  s y "p ¼ 0

@f
Associated flow rule D

p
¼ l @s ; "p ¼ l
Consistency condition f ¼0
 
Loading and unloading conditions f s; s y  0; l  0; f l ¼ 0
Exp Mech

0.8

0.6
fracture

Stress /GPa
0.4
S12
0.2 S11
S22
0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
-0.2
x1 Elongation d/ mm

x2 Fig. 16 Variations of the three in-plane stress components at the

center point of the shear zone
(a) d=0.25mm

normal stress components in shear zone. Accordingly, the

variations of the three main in-plane stress components at
the center point of the shear zone are depicted in Fig. 16.
The shear stress component climbs rapidly in the early
stage of the deformation, while it increases mildly in the
later stage until fracture. Both the normal stress S11 and S22
behave with a fluctuation relative to the zero-axis. S11
declines first and then climbs, while the stress S22 behaves
conversely. However, both are retained at a relatively low
state in comparison with the shear stress. The resulting
effect is in favor of the shear stress dominating the shear
x1 zone and insures that the realized simple shear stress state
in the shear zone always approximates pure shear state. It is
x2 also observed that only the shear stress exists when the
(b) d=2.00mm
elongation equals 2.0 mm and the corresponding stress state
is pure shear. This agrees with the deformed configuration
of that moment shown in Fig. 15(b).
Comparisons of the experimental nominal shear stress
with numerical shear stress S12 at the center point of the
shear zone are presented in Fig. 17. The nominal shear
stress is the applied force divided by the nominal cross-
sectional area of the shear zone; and in present work the
cross-sectional area is 5 mm×2 mm, where 5 mm refers to

0.8
x1
Shear stress /GPa

0.6
x2
fracture
(c) d=3.86mm, close to fracture
0.4
Fig. 15 Evolutions of the shear stress S12 distribution in the shear
zone plane stress FE S12
0.2
solid FE S12
H31 nominal shear stress
The experimental observations in Fig. 10 and the shear 0.0
strain comparisons in Fig. 14 together show that the shear 0 1 2 3 4 5
zone undergoes a finite rotation in the process of being Elongation d /mm
loaded. In the section of ‘Experimental Results,’ it is Fig. 17 Comparisons of the experimental nominal shear stress with
mentioned that the rotation may induce the variations of the numerical shear stress S12 at the center point in the shear zone
 Exp Mech

a negative to a positive value, and reaches a maximum of

0.03 at the point of fracture. The obtained lower stress
triaxiality and the Lode parameter imply that the shear state
approaches the pure shear quite closely.
The average stress triaxiality and Lode parameter [12,
14, 19] are defined by
Z "f 

hav ¼ hd" "f ð7Þ
0

Z 
"f
xav ¼ xd" "f ð8Þ
0

where η is the stress triaxiality, ξ is the Lode parameter, ‘av’

means ‘average,’ " is the equivalent plastic strain and "f
Fig. 18 Equivalent plastic strain distribution of the shear zone on the denotes the " at incipient fracture. According to the data in
point to fracture Fig. 19, the calculated ηav is equal to 0.006 and ξav is 0.03.
The obtained low values of ηav and ξav indicate that the
presented in-plane shear specimen design is suitable for
the nominal shear length. It is seen that the three curves
studying the fracture damage under the shear stress state.
generally coincide well, though a small difference is observed.
The fact that the actual shear length is always varying with the
rotation of the shear zone may be appropriate for interpreting
Concluding Remarks
the difference. This can be further explained by the
phenomena displayed in Fig. 15(c) that the nominal shear
The stress and strain relationship for DP800 is determined
stress equals the numerical results when the elongation is
by using uniaxial tensile tests and plastic hardening, which
close to 2 mm. As mentioned above, the corresponding state
is described by a power function. Based on the work of Bao
of that moment is pure shear, and the actual shear length
[9] and Tarigopula [10], a different in-plane shear specimen
equals the invariable nominal shear length.
suitable for ductile fracture studies has been developed. The
Figure 18 shows the equivalent plastic strain distribution
shear tests are carried out and a non-contact optical field-
of the shear zone when the specimen is at the point of
measuring technique, DIC, is adopted to measure the
facture. As can be seen, the deformation is highly
elongation of the gauge length and the shear strain
concentrated within the shear zone. As we know, the
distribution of the shear zone. It is shown that the shear
equivalent plastic strain belongs to internal variable and is
zone of the specimen undergoes a large rotation during the
closely linked with the level of the material damage
tests which may induce the variations of the stress state.
accumulation. Therefore, within this zone the fracture is
Furthermore, the deformation concentrates on the shear
most possibly initiated and the center point is adopted to
zone and no thinning phenomenon has been observed,
investigate the damage accumulation.
which implies there exists no plastic instability in this kind
The crack formation of ductile materials has been found
of shear test.
that it is closely related to the endured stress state, which
can be described by the stress triaxiality and Lode
parameter. The stress triaxiality and Lode parameter can
Stress triaxility and Lode parameter

be formulated as 0.20 fracture

0.15
h ¼ s m =s ð5Þ
0.10
27 J3 0.05
x¼ ð6Þ
2 s3 0.00
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
-0.05
in which J3 is the third invariant of the stress deviators. In Equivalent plastic stain
-0.10
terms of principal components S1, S2, S3, the stress deviator stress triaxility
is defined by J3 =S1S2S3. So the evolutions of the stress -0.15
Lode parameter
triaxiality and Lode parameter with the equivalent plastic
stain in the crack initiation are obtained and described in Fig. 19 Evolutions of the stress triaxiality and the Lode parameter
Fig. 19. The stress triaxiality increases monotonically from with the equivalent plastic stain at the potential crack initiation
Exp Mech
Based on the implicit FE solver Abaqus/Standard,
numerical simulations of the quasi-static shear test are
conducted by using plane stress and solid elements. A
material model with von Mises yield criterion and isotropic
hardening are utilized in the calculations. It is noted that the
numerical results in terms of the relationship of the applied
load versus the elongation of the gauge length are in good
agreement with experimental results analyzed by DIC. In
addition, based on numerical calculations, the shear zone of
the specimen is analyzed in detail including the shear stress
distributions, the variations of the three in-plane stress
components, comparisons of the nominal shear stress with
the actual shear stress, the equivalent strain distributions and
the evolutions of the stress triaxiality and Lode parameter. It is
found that the shear deformation concentrates on the designed
shear zone and the shear stress distributes widely and
uniformly. The stress state within the shear zone is dominated
by shear stress, and the other two normal stress components
are repressed at a relatively low level and fluctuate. The
nominal shear stress and the actual shear stress are generally
consistent. The equivalent strain is highly located in the shear
zone, where incipient fracture is most likely to occur. The
evolutions of the stress triaxiality and the Lode parameter at
the center of shear zone are provided, whose maximum and
average values are both maintained at a low level. The above
obtained results demonstrate the in-plane shear specimen
design presented in this work is suitable for fracture studies of
high strength materials under the shear stress state.
Acknowledgements The present work has been supported finan-
cially by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
50775120). Thanks are also given to SSAB Swedish Steel Works for
supplying DP800 sheet metal.
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