Anisotropic Hardening of Sheet Metals at Elevated Temperature: Tension-Compressions Test Development and Validation

New test equipment has been developed to measure the in-plane cyclic behavior of sheet metals at elevated temperatures. The tester has clamping dies with adjustable side force to prevent the sheet specimens from buckling during compressive loading. In addition to the room temperature experiment, cartridge type heaters are inserted in the clamping dies so that the specimen can be heated up to 400 °C during the cyclic tests. For the strain measurement, a non-contact type laser extensometer is used. In order to validate the newly developed test device, the tension-compression (and compression-tension) tests under pre-strains and various temperatures have been performed. As model materials, the aluminum alloy sheet which exhibits a large Bauschinger effect and the magnesium alloy sheet which exhibits different amounts of asymmetry under cyclic loading are used. The developed device can be well-suited to measure the cyclic material behavior, especially the anisotropic and asymmetric hardening of light-weight materials.