Importance of hole punching conditions during Hole Expansion test

There is an increasing interest in the steelmaking and automotive industries to evaluate the edge cracking sensitivity of Advanced High Strength Steel sheets used in car body manufacturing. Currently, the Hole Expansion test is the only test procedure that is defined by norms (JFS and ISO). This test is increasingly used to assess the formability of cut-edges on punched sheets because it is relatively simple. However, it has been already shown that there can be large differences in Hole Expansion Ratio (HER) values generated by different testing facilities. Among the main sources of variability: punched hole quality and hole expansion termination point. Hole punching operation has a detrimental effect on cut-edge quality and HER values. However, current standards do not give any recommendation. No technical specification is given for the tooling, quality control system and punching speed. It has been stated that the press speed difference in the hole punching operation are significantly different from one laboratory to another one and some steel microstructures sensitive to it. However, very few papers and data are available. As a result, an experimental study was conducted to examine this important issue. A specific 4-post assembly tool was designed to guarantee the best punched hole quality. Different punching speeds, from 0.2mm/s to 367mm/s were tested on different steel sheets (mild steel, AHSS including TWIP and 3^rd Gen steel) to emphasize or not the influence on final HER values.