A Constitutive Model of 6111-T4 Aluminum Alloy Sheet Based on the Warm Tensile Test

As main light-weight material, aluminum alloy sheets have been widely applied to produce auto body panels. In order to predict the formability and springback of aluminum alloy sheets, a precise constitutive model is a necessity. In this article, a series of warm tensile tests were conducted on Gleeble-1500D thermal mechanical simulator for 6111-T4 aluminum alloy sheets. The corresponding strain rate ranged from 0.015 to 1.5 s⁻¹, and the temperature ranged from 25 to 350 °C. The relationship between the temperature, the strain rate, and the flow stress were discussed. A constitutive model based on the updated Fields-Backofen equation was established to describe the flow behavior of 6111-T4 aluminum alloy during the warm tensile tests. Subsequently, the average absolute relative error (AARE) was introduced to verify the predictability of the constitutive model. The value of AARE at the uniform plastic deformation stage was calculated to be 1.677%, which demonstrates that the predicted flow stress values were in accordance with the experimental ones. The constitutive model was validated by the fact that the simulated results of the warm tensile tests coincided with the experimental ones.