Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and numerical analysis for the description of the mechanical behaviour of a carbon steel wire during an industrial process of damp drawing. Firstly, an experimental procedure aimed at measuring wire drawing forces in the twelve reductions present in the process was performed. Secondly, tensile tests were carried out in order to characterize the mechanical behavior of the material for each reduction step. The resulting stress-strain curves together with the computed responses obtained from the simulation of such tests allowed to derive the evolution of the representative elastic and plastic material parameters. This parameter evolution clearly reflected the relevant amount of hardening experienced by the material which, in turn, imposes restrictions over the drawing operation. The numerical simulations were conducted via a large strain elasto-plasticity model implemented in an existing finite element-based code called VULCAN. The material parameters obtained in the tensile tests were considered as data for the modeling of the entire wire drawing sequences. The computed results are considered as reasonable and representative of the material response during the deforming process.