Short Communication

Notch root strain measurement of WE43 magnesium alloy using electronic speckle pattern interferometry
Haw Ling Liewa, Judha Purbolaksonoa,*, Azmi Bin Ahmadb
a

Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya,

Lembah Pantai, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

b

Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, ,

Malaysia *Corresponding author. E-mail address: judha@um.edu.my

Abstract The notch root elasto-plastic strain for circumferentially grooved round specimens of cast magnesium WE43-T6 was experimentally measured. Hexagonally close-packed magnesium has intrinsic limited ductility, and its potential implications on the validity of various rules for the prediction of maximum notch root strain such as Neubers and Glinkas motivate this work. The measurements were performed on circularly notched specimens with small radii of 1.6 mm and 0.8 mm; together with the opening angle of 60 , they are moderately deep and sharp. The technique of electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) is used with the objective of confirming its accuracy in measuring three dimensional surface deformations on large negatively curved manifolds. The measured nominal stress for rupture is well beyond the ultimate strength, this suggests the existence of significant biaxial stress at the notch root. Comparing to the results of finite element simulation, ESPI-based strain measurement on notch surfaces with negative Gaussian curvature is concluded to be accurate. Furthermore, we report on the distribution of the simulated plastic zone at the notch root.

1. Introduction The interest for research and applications involving magnesium (Mg) and its alloys has been steadily increasing. This inexorable trend of magnesium toward a ubiquitous material is attributed to its high specific strength and promising potential
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against detrimental environmental effects (see e.g. Mordike and Ebert [1]). Applications in areas such as aerospace, automobile, machines, electronics, and bioengineering are ever increasing; leading to continuous development of new magnesium alloys that are added to the repository of engineering materials. One such material is the WE43 cast magnesium [2], the knowledge of the mechanical properties of such relatively new material is wanting; and research for its mechanical behavior is active. We cite for example Lapovok and Hodgson [3] for the determination of the lower bound ductility of AZ31 magnesium using bulge specimens, Marrow et al. [4] for investigating environmental-assisted cracking of WE43 magnesium, Ma et al. [5] for studying the mechanical properties of magnesium processed by accumulative compression bonding, and Yang et al. [6] for studying the annealing of a magnesium alloy AZ31 with interrupted cold deformation.

In this work, our objectives are two folds: we report on the elasto-plastic strain behavior at the root of circularly notched WE43 magnesium specimens by experimental measurement and numerical simulation; and we report on the use of a relatively new technique for strain measurement, namely the electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI), for three dimensional surface strain measurement on moderately sharp negatively curved notches that implicates large axial strain gradient. An important application of notch strain analysis is the local damage approach of low cycle fatigue, and the maximum strain at the notch root is often estimated using Neubers rule and various other rules based on strain energy density, for example Glinkas, that have been studied extensively and validated using various cubic materials such as steel alloys (see e.g. Zeng and Fatemi [7]). Magnesium alloys with crystals of hexagonal close-packed structure has intrinsically poor ductility in

comparison to cubic materials [8], for example the elongation of WE43 is 7% at room temperature [2]. Notwithstanding the obvious sanguine proposition to employ Neubers and Glinkas for such materials, their validity have not being established; this work on notch root strain measurement is a first step toward this goal. In a broader sense, the accurate knowledge of strain field around the notch root may support the understanding, development, and evaluation of various analytical and empirical models for stress and strain distributions, see e.g. [9, 10]. In this report, we provide for the experimental measurement of the maximum strain for specimens of WE43-T6 magnesium alloy with moderately sharp notches. The strain measurement at the notch root is performed using ESPI, a non-contacting technique that is capable of resolving full field deformation of the order of sub-micrometer. Comparison with the results of finite element (FE) simulation is provided.

2. Material and methods 2.1 Specimen material and geometry

The material used was cast magnesium WE43 with T6 treatment. Table 1 lists some of the mechanical properties from the material datasheet [2].

Table 1. Mechanical properties of WE43-T6 [2]. Modulus of elasticity (GPa) Poissons ratio Yield stress (0.2%) (MPa) Tensile strength (MPa) Elongation (%) 44 0.27 180 250 7

Circumferentially notched round bar with radii of 1.6 mm and 0.8 mm as depicted in Fig. 1 were used in this study, the elastic stress concentration factors are =
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1.94, 2.53 respectively from interpolation on nomographs in [11]. With an opening angle of 60 , the depth (2/ )for both notches is high at the value of 0.29. The sharpness (/) is moderate with value of 0.38 and 0.19 respectively for notch radius of 1.6 mm and 0.8 mm. These configurations are roughly drawn from ASTM E602 [12], and they are similar to those used in Zeng and Fatemi [7]. In relevance to the ESPI measurement described next, the grooved surfaces are curved with negative Gaussian curvatures of the order of 0.1 mm.

Fig 1. The geometry of the circularly notched specimens.

2.2

EPSI strain measurement

Electronic pattern speckle interferometry (see e.g. [13]), a non-contact and full-field three-dimensional surface deformation measurement technique, has recently evolved to the level of reliability and accuracy that meets the rigorous requirements of research standard. Full field displacement measurements, easy application for in-situ measurements, nonrequirement of fiducial marking, and displacement of submicrometer accuracy are some of the main features of this seemingly becoming
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technique in experimental mechanics and material testing. We cite Bottlang et al. [14] for measurement of full field continuous strain distribution in a biological material with steep functionally graded stiffness, Tay et al. [15] for experimentally studying the plastic zone around the tip of a through thickness crack, and Cavaco [16] for using the theory of elasticity and ESPI-based measurement to develop a hybrid experimental theoretical technique for residual stress analysis.

For measuring notch root strain of moderately sharp notches with small radii of curvature that implicate large strain gradient, the ESPI-based displacement measurement is advantageous: (1) As the displacement field is numerically differentiated to compute the strain field, the error is greatly amplified by measurement noise for instance the maximum accuracy when the fourth-order Richardson extrapolation is used is 10 for noise level of 10 [17]; (2) for notches with small radii of curvature, the conventional technique of strain gages is but very difficult and less accurate because of the gage length requirement [7].

The 3D-ESPI System of Dantec Dynamics is the center piece of the instrumentation in our work, Fig 2 shows the set-up. The ESPI unit is attached to the crosshead of a tensile testing machine through a pulley system so that the position of the optical camera that capture images of the notch root could remain static relative to the notch root during the tensile testing. A built-in software, ISTRA, controls the sensor-head for alignment, and processes the images.

Fig 2. The set-up of the ESPI system.

2.3

Finite element model

Numerical simulation of the elasto-plastic strain behavior at the notch root of the notched WE43 magnesium specimen is performed using the finite element method via ANSYS. The finite element mesh of the physical domain is shown in Fig 3, and linear quadrilateral isoparametric element is used for the discretization. In order to minimize computational error due to the expected behavior of large strain gradient, the characteristic size of the element at the vicinity of the root is set to be 4 m; translating into 400 and 200 elements over respectively a length of the size of the notch radius of 1.6 and 0.8 mm. The material plasticity for stresses exceeding the yield stress is represented using a multi-linear uniaxial stress-strain constitutive relationship. We also assume a homogeneous and isotropic continuum material and microstructures such as grain size that becomes relevant at this length scale are ignored.

Fig 3. The finite element meshes for the axisymmetric circularly grooved specimens.

3. Results and discussion The three dimensional full field axial strain contour on the grooved region obtained using the ESPI measurement system prior to rupture is shown in Fig 4. By averaging the surface strain on the circumference of the notch root, we obtained the uniaxial notch root strain; and this result is plotted in Fig 5 together with the prediction from the finite element simulation.

The results of ESPI measurements of the notch root strains on both specimens, as plotted in Fig 5, agree very well with the strains computed using the finite element method over the elastic region. Deviation of the finite element results from the experimental measurement in the plastic zone is expected since the multi-linear uniaxial stress-strain relationship used in the simulation does not include the plane strain effects of the round bar specimen. Such deviation is also observed in Zeng and Fatemi [7]. The nominal stress for rupture is observed to be well beyond the ultimate strength listed in Table 1 when the area reduction factor of 2.03 at the notch root is

taken into account; this is due to the moderately sharp notch root that produces significant hoop stress.

In the ESPI image for strain contour, several distinct color fringes are observed at the root, indicating that the axial strain is well resolved in both specimens. The anomaly of non-uniform root strain on the circumference observed in Fig 4(a) is likely due to a small offset in the alignment of the test specimen. This accidental imperfection in the set-up is not unbeneficial; for it is detected, and hence validating the sensitivity of this measurement system. The high degree of axisymmetry of the contour field also suggests that this technique is capable of measuring strain on curved surfaces; and the case in point are surfaces with negative Gaussian curvatures of the order of 0.1 mm.

In Fig 6, the decomposition of the elastic strain and the plastic strain are shown. These strain fields correspond to the last three loading steps in the finite element simulation. The plane strain effect at the notch root is obvious, as the plastic zone remains small and localized for both specimens at a nominal stress of about 180 MPa that corresponds to the yield stress for the nominal cross-section.

Fig 4. ESPI strain contour displaying full field axial strain on the specimen prior to rupture failure. (a) 1.6 mm notch, and (b) 0.8 mm notch.

Fig 5. Notch root strains with uniaxial tensile loading. Three tests were conducted with each notched configuration. The last data point indicates state prior to rupture. Comparison with the finite element calculation is included.

Fig 6. The elastic and plastic strain fields simulated by the finite element method. The nominal stresses correspond to the last three load increment steps in the simulation.

4. Conclusion The notch root strain measurement for cast magnesium WE43-T6 is reported for moderately deep and sharp notches. Three dimensional full field surface strain measurement at the notch with negative Gaussian curvature of the order of 0.1 mm are obtained using the technique of ESPI. Finite element simulation confirms the

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accuracy of ESPI, and the plane strain effect is found to be pronounced at these notch roots.

Acknowledgment The third author is grateful for the access to the set-up of ESPI at UMIST, Manchester, UK. The corresponding author is funded by the UM-MOHE-HIR grant.

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