Experimental determination of the void volume fraction for S235JR steel at failure in the range of high stress triaxialities

This paper is concerned with the critical void volume fraction fF representing the size of microdefects in a material at the time of failure. The parameter is one of the constants of the Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman (GTN) material model that need to be determined while modelling material failure processes. In this paper, an original experimental method is proposed to determine the values of fF. The material studied was S235JR steel. After tensile tests, the void volume fraction was measured at the fracture surface using an advanced technique of quantitative image analysis The material was subjected to high initial stress triaxialities T0 ranging from 0.556 to 1.345. The failure processes in S235JR steel were analysed taking into account the influence of the state of stress.