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RARE METALS, Vol. 27, No. I , Feb 2008, p . 64

Damage and fracture mechanism of 6063 aluminum alloy under three kinds of
stress states
ZHU Hao, ZHU Liang, and CHEN Jianhong
Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Educution of Chinafor Nonferrous Metal Alloys, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lunzhou 7300S0,China
Received 20 September 2006; received in revised form 5 December 2006; accepted 10 December 2006

Abstract
To study the damage and fracture mechanism of 6063 aluminum alloy under different stress states, three kinds of representative triaxial stress
states have been adopted, namely smooth tensile, notch tensile, and pure shear. The results of the study indicate the following. During the
notch tensile test, a relatively higher stress triaxiality appears in the root of the notch. With the applied loading increasing, the volume fraction of microvoids in the root of the notch increases continuously. When it reaches the critical volume fraction of microvoids, the specimen
fractures. During the pure shear test, the stress triaxiality almost equals to zero, and there is almost no microvoids but a shear band at the center of the butterfly specimen. The shear band results from nonuniform deformation constantly under the shear stress. With stress concentration, cracks are produced within the shear band and are later coalesced. When the equivalent plastic strain reaches the critical value (equivalent plastic fracture strain), the butterfly specimen fractures. During the smooth tensile test, the stress triaxiality in the gauge of the specimen
remains constant at 0.33. Thus, the volume of microvoids of the smooth tensile test is less than that of the notch tensile test and the smooth
specimen fractures due to shearing between microvoids. The G-T-N damage model and Johnson-Cook model are used to simulate the notch
tensile and shear test, respectively. The simulated engineering stress-strain curves fit the measured engineering stress-strain curves very well.
In addition, the empirical damage evolution equation for the notch specimen is obtained from the experimental data and FEM simulations.
Keywords: 6063 aluminum alloy; damage mechanism; fracture mechanism; G-T-N model; Johnson-Cook model

1. Introduction
Aluminum alloys are increasingly applied to produce
automobiles, since they are capable of reducing the mass of
vehicles, fuel consumption, and environmental pollution. An
important quality for vehicles is crashworthiness [I]. During
the impacting process of an automobile, the stress state at
each part in its components is different. Moreover, the stress
state at each part changes with passing time. Different stress
states result in different damage and fracture forms. There
are several reports on ductile damage and ductile fracture.
Ductile fracture (based on initiation, growth, and coalescence of voids) and shear fracture (based on shear band locahzation) are primary two kinds of fracture forms for ductile materials [2-41. El-Magd et al. [5] studied the deformation and damage behaviors of AA7075 aluminum alloy under two loadings and found that deformation localization
and shear band caused the damage in AA7075 aluminum
alloy under compression loading and under tensile loadmg,
AA7075 aluminum alloy failed due to nucleation, growth,
Corresponding author: ZHU Hao

E-mail: zhuhao@mail2.lut.cn

and coalescence of microvoids. Smerd et al. [6] found that

the damage forms of AA5754 and AA5 182 aluminum alloys
were microvoids and fracture due to shear amongst the microvoids through high strain rate tensile testing of automotive aluminum alloy sheets. The damage forms of 6063 aluminum alloy under crushmg loading change with the
changing of stress state. Thus, any one damage model cannot adequately describe the damage and deformation forms
of 6063 aluminum alloy and there are also few reports on
the damage and fracture of 6063 aluminum alloy. This article studies the damage and fracture mechanism of 6063
aluminum alloy under three kinds of stress states. At the
same time, the G-T-N model and Johnson-cook model are
used to simulate the damage behaviors of notch tensile and
pure shear, respectively.

2. Experimental
The experimental material was 6063 (T5) extruded aluminum alloy and its microstructure is shown in Fig. 1,

Zhu H. et aL, Damage and fracture mechanism of 6063 aluminum alloy under three kinds of stress states

65

which shows that the size of grains varied greatly, with the
maximum reaching 100 Fm, while the minimum was only
several microns. Its chemical composition was given in
wt.% as follows: Mg, 0.45-0.9; Si, 0.2-0.6; Zn, Cr, Ti and
Mn < 0.1; and Fe < 0.35. For the notch tensile test, double-side notch specimens were used. Tensile direction was
parallel to the direction of extrusion. The shapes and dimensions of smooth tensile specimens and the notch tensile
specimen are shown in Fig. 2. For the pure shear test, the
butterfly specimens and modified Arcan fixture were used
and their shapes and dimensions are shown in Fig. 3. The
schematic diagram of the pure test using modified Arcan
fixture is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 3. Butterfly specimen (a) and modified Arcan fiiture (b)

for the shear test.
Pure shear test

Fig. 1. Microstructure of 6063 extrusion aluminum alloy.

I L"

I
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of the pure test.

property.
Fig. 2. Shapes and dimensions of a smooth tensile specimen (a)
and a notch tensile specimen (h).

The tests were performed on the smooth, notch, and butterfly specimens by the universal test machine with a cross
head speed of 0.5 mm/min at room temperature. The yield
stress, work hardening coefficient, and work hardening exponent were measured by the engineer stress-strain curve of
the smooth tensile test. The power-law hardening relationship was used for ABAQUS calculations as material

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Analysis of experimental curves
The engineer stress-stain curves of three kinds of experiments are shown in Fig. 5. The yield stress ny= 195.4 MPa
was drawn from the engineer stress-strain curve of the smooth tensile test. The work hardening coefficient and work
hardening exponent were 28 1.8 and 0.07, respectively,
which were drawn from the true stress-strain curve of

smooth tensile test.

Fig. 5 shows that the fracture strain of the smooth tensile
test is larger than that of the notch tensile test, and the yield
stress and peak stress of the smooth tensile test are less than
those of the notch tensile test. Those can be explained by Fig.
6, which shows the stress triaxiality distribution curves of
three kinds of tests. The stress triaxiality of smooth tensile
keeps always 0.33, but the maximal stress aiaxiality of
notch tensile can be up to 0.515. The relatively larger stress
triaxiality makes the specimen's deformation difficult and
more stress is needed to reach the same strain. Therefore, the
larger stress triaxiality has a higher fracture driving force,
which results in the fracture of the specimen at a lower strain.
Thus, the fracture strain of notch tensile test is less than that
of smooth tensile specimen [2, 71. Fig. 6 also shows that the
stress triaxiality of the pure test is close to 0.1 (because it is
difficult to get the pure shear state in experiment). The fracture strain of the pure shear test is far bigger than that of the
smooth tensile test.

3.2. Metallographic results and discussion

To study the damage mechanism, the specimens of the
smooth tensile, notch tensile, and shear tests were loaded
and then unloaded when the strain designated was reached.
The unloaded specimens were cut at the center along the
vertical planes parallel to the direction of applied load and
mounted and then polished on 180-grit paper. All the polishing was done by wet polishing papers to prevent particles
from extraction from the soft aluminum matrix. The metallographic pictures are shown in Fig. 7,

RARE METALS, Vol. 27,No. 1, Feb 2008

66

f
It

200 a

- 200

1150

-m-

-0-

,,i it

-A-

Notch tensile
Smooth tensile
Pure shear

~~

1-7"

7 0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

EJY,

Fig. 5. Stress-strain curves of the tests.

0.2

- Notch tensile

- - - -Smooth
.
tensile

Pure shear

0.1

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

Path along central section of specimen / nm

Fig. 6. Curves of stress triaxiality distribution.

Fig. 7. Metallographic pictures of unloaded specimens: (a) particle and void damage in a smooth tensile specimen with an unloading strain of 0.1; (b) particle and void damage in a notch tensile specimen with an unloading strain of 0.09, (c) shear band crack in a
pure shear specimen with an unloading strain of 1.05.

Fig. 7(a) shows the unloaded metallographic pictures of a

smooth tensile specimen, from which it can be seen that
there are a few microvoids in the smooth tensile specimen
and the volume of microvoids is relatively small. This is
because the stress triaxiality amongst the smooth tensile

specimen is relatively small and the driving force of voids

growing is normal stress. The higher the normal stress is, the
higher the stress triaxiality is, the more rapidly the voids
grow and the bigger the volume of voids. Fig. 7(b) shows
the unloaded metallographic picture of a notch tensile

Zhu H. etal., Damage and fracture mechanism of 6063 aluminum alloy under three kinds of stress states

specimen, which shows that there are a lot of microvoids

amongst the unloaded notch specimen and the volume of
microvoids is bigger than that of the smooth tensile specimen. This is because the stress triaxiality amongst the notch
tensile specimen is higher than that amongst the smooth tensile specimen. At the same time, the microvoids have started
to coalesce and then microcracks are produced due to coalescence of microvoids. With coalescence of microcracks,
the notch specimen fractures. Fig. 7(c) shows that there is a
shear deformation band in the unloaded shear specimen and
the shear deformation band is a result from plastic deformation localization. Since the stress triaxiality amongst the pure
specimen is close to 0.1 and the less the stress triaxiality, the
larger the shear stress. The driving force of materials deformation is the shear stress and the higher the shear stress, the
more easily the materials deform. At the same time, there is
a crack in the shear deformation band and the crack was
produced due to deformation incompatibility. With the
cracks extending and coalescence, the butterfly specimen
fractures.
Fig. 8 shows the typical fracture surfaces of smooth tensile, notch tensile, and pure shear specimens, from which it

67

can be seen that the features of fracture surfaces of the smooth tensile specimen, notch tensile specimen, and shear
specimen are obviously different. Figs. 8(a) and 8(b) show
the fracture surfaces of the smooth tensile specimen and Fig.
8(a) is the macroscopical fracture surface, which shows that
the macroscopical fracture surface is relatively smooth and
there is no obvious change in the direction of width and
thickness. It is revealed that the smooth specimen did not
neck before fracture. Therefore, the stress triaxiality of the
smooth tensile specimen can always remain constant. Fig.
8(b) shows the magnified fracture surface, where there are a
lot of dimples and also the volume of dimples is relatively
small. At the same time, the direction of the dimples is not
perpendicular to the direction of tensile loading. Therefore,
it can be concluded that the fracture mode of the smooth
tensile specimen is the voids shearing mechanism, which is
the combination of dimpled fracture and shear fracture. Figs.
8(c) and 8(d) show the fracture surfaces of the notch tensile
specimen and Fig. 8(c) shows its macroscopical fracture
surface, which shows that there is obvious change in the direction of width and thickness for the notch tensile specimen
due to necking before fracture. Therefore, the maximum

Fig. 8. Fracture surfaces of three kinds of tests: (a, b) fracture surfaces of the smooth tensile test; (c, d) fracture surfaces of the
notch tensile test; (e, f) fracture surfaces of the shear test.

RARE METALS, Vol. 27, No. 1, Feb 2008

68

stress triaxiality amongst the notch specimen can be up to

0.515. At the same time, it also can be seen that the macroscopical fracture surface takes on a cup-cone shape. It is
because the stress triaxiality along the path of minimum
transverse area is different, as shown in Fig. 6 and the stress
triaxiality can reach the maximum value of 0.5 15 at the center of the specimen. Therefore, the fracture mechanism is
voids-coalescence fracture at the center of the specimen,
while the fracture mechanism is shearing fracture on the
surface of the specimen and the parts close to it. Fig. 8(d)
shows the magnified fracture surface, which shows several
dimples on the fracture surfaces of the notch tensile specimen and the dimples are the produce of microvoids. The direction of dimples is perpendicular to the direction of tensile
loading and the volume of dimples is bigger than that of the
smooth tensile specimen. In a word, for ductile materials,
the material instability starts with the forming of a necking.
It is followed by the initiation of fracture at the center of the
necking with linkage of adjacent voids due to hydrostatic
stress. The coalescence of voids usually forms a zig-zag
configuration and this is perpendicular to the loading direction. Figs. 8(e) and 8(f) show the fracture surfaces of the
shear specimen and Fig. 8(e) is its macroscopical fracture
surface, which shows that the macroscopical fracture surface
is very flat and smooth. Fig. 8(f) shows the magnified fracture surface, where there are typical snaky slipping and
ripple waves on the shear fracture surfaces and the direction of shear fracture surfaces is parallel to that of the
maximum shear stress. Under the shear stress, the microvoids are elongated and form the parabola or half-ellipse
dimples on the fracture surfaces [2-31. Therefore, it is revealed that the fracture mechanism is shear fracture.

4. Finite element simulations

The G-T-N model [7-81 was used to give a numerical
description of the notch tensile test. The yield flow function
is

where Q is the macroscopical Mises equivalent stress, P

is the macroscopical hydrostatic stress, R ( 3 )is the yield
stress of the undamaged matrix material, 41, qa and q3 are
modulation parameters considering the interaction of voids,
and f * is the volume fraction of voids revised.
In the notch tensile test, the parameters of the G-T-N
model flow function are set as the following. ql = 1.25, q 2 =
1.O, q3 = 1.625;fo,initial volume fraction of voids, = 0.0025;
fc, volume fraction of voids at coalescence, = 0.035; &,
volume fraction of voids at fracture, = 0.0475; fn, volume

fraction of voids forming particles, = 0.02; EN, medium

strain for voids formation, = 0.3; SN, standard deviation, =
0.1.
The Johnson-Cook model [9-1I] was used to simulate the
pure shear test. The Johnson-Cook constitutive relation and
fracture strain relation are as follows.
The constitutive relation:

cr = ( A + B E ) (1+ C l n E ) [ 1- (T)]
EO

The fracture strain relation:

Ef =

Dl+D2exp D3-z ) ] ( l + i ) D 4 ( l + D 5 T * )

(3)

Here, T * = (T - T, ) /(Tm- T ) ,& is the strain rate, go is

the reference strain rate, T, is the reference temperature,
T, is the melt temperature, 3 is the hydrostatic stress,
6, is the equivalent stress. A, B , C, n, m,Dl, D2,
D3, D4.
and D5are materials constants.
In the Johnson-Cook model: A = 176.45 MPa, B = 63.99
MPa, n = 0.07, C = 0.0036, m = 0, D l= 0.07413, 02 =
0.0892, D3= -2.441, 0 4 = -4.76, and Ds= 0. Simulated results by ABAQUS are shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 9(a) shows that the engineering stress-strain curves
of simulation with the G-T-N model is close to the measured
engineering stress-strain curve of the notch tensile. It proves
that the G-T-N model can be used to simulate the damage
behavior of the notch tensile test. The engineering
stress-strain curve of simulation without adopting the G-T-N
damage model overestimates the stress of the notch tensile
test. Fig. 9(b) shows that the Johnson-Cook model can be
used to simulate the shear test. Fig. 9(c) shows the curve of
voids growth versus time by simulating the notch tensile test.
As can be seen in Fig. 9(c), voids grow stably before A, and
the curve produces fluctuation from A to B, indicating that
certain voids start to coalesce. During the process of growth,
several voids start to coalesce after B, so it results in fracture
of the specimen. The following empirical damage evolution
equation in the root of the notch specimen is obtained from
the experimental data on void volume fraction and the corresponding local equivalent plastic strain and stress triaxiality computed from FEM simulations:
f = a + bln(Z,,) + c (Bm/ 6,)
(4)
where a, b, and c are empirical constant whose values depend on the alloys composition, heat treatment, and microstructure. Eq. (4) is only applied to 6063 (T5) Al-alloy. In
this experiments, a = -0.35, b = 0.25, and c = 1.32.

5. Conclusions
(1) The damage mechanism and fracture mechanism are

Zhu H. eta/., Damage and fracture mechanism of 6063 aluminum alloy under three kinds of stress states

the specimen.
(2) The G-T-N damage model and Johnson-Cook model
can be used to simulate the notch tensile test and pure shear
test, respectively.
(3) The empirical damage evolution equation in the notch
specimen of 6063 (T5) Al-alloy is obtained:

.
b'

69

100

f =-0.35+0.251nFp+1.32(8,/o,).
-m-

Experiment

This equation is only applied to 6063 (T5) aluminum alloy.

-0- Without damage model

-V-

Curson model

Acknowledgement
0.00

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

Ec

References

I60
120

f:eU

80

-0-

-0-

0.030

F>

Experiment
Johnson-Cook model

1'"

J;=0.035

HT

Coalescence

0.020 -

.....................................................
Nuleation
G
!orwht

0.0 10 0.000
0.000

'I"research is financially supported by the Ministry of

Science and Technology of China (No. 2004CCA04900).

0.002

0.004

0.006

Time / s

Fig. 9. Simulation results of FEM: (a) notch tensile simulation; (b) shear simulation; (c) VVFG (void volume fraction due
to growth) versus time of notch tensile.

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