Plasticity, Damage, and Fracture for Lightweight High-Strength Metals

Dear Colleagues,

Metals with a high strength-to-density ratio (such as advanced high-strength steel, aluminum, magnesium, and titanium alloys) are widely applied in the automobile industry, aerospace engineering, and national defense to reduce structure weight and fuel consumption, improve carrying capability, and enhance service performance. However, lightweight metals undergo plastic deformation during shaping into designed structures and various service conditions. Proper characterization of plastic behavior is beneficial for the reliable numerical simulation and analysis of lightweight design and metal-forming processes. Plastic deformation of lightweight metals is incredibly complicated due to anisotropy, anisotropic hardening, strength differential effect, distortional hardening, thermal softening, strain rate hardening, etc. Formability is also poor for lightweight metals, and ductile fracture needs to be taken into account both in plastic forming and services of crashing, impact, and perforation. These characteristics must be properly characterized by proper experiments, analytically modeled and considered in numerical simulation.

This Special Issue aims to cover recent progresses and new developments in the characterization of complicated plastic behavior, including but not limited to strain hardening at large strain and various stress states, anisotropy, tension–compression asymmetry, anisotropic hardening, distortional hardening, strain rate hardening, thermal softening, Bauschinger effect, and ductile fracture. All aspects above are covered by different approaches, such as advanced experimental techniques, analytical modeling, numerical implementation, and different verifications and applications. Review articles which describe the current state of the art are also welcomed.

Prof. Dr. Yanshan Lou
Prof. Dr. Heng Li
Dr. Xiaochuan Liu
Dr. Yanfeng Yang
Guest Editors

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