Dynamic Mechanical Characteristics and Constitutive Modeling of Rail Steel over a Wide Range of Temperatures and Strain Rates

Abstract EN

Rail steel plays an indispensable role in the safety and stability of the railway system.

Therefore, a suitable constitutive model is quite significant to understand the mechanical behavior of this material.

Here, the compressive mechanical behavior of heat-treated U71Mn rail steel over a wide range of strain rates (0.001 s−1–10000 s−1) and temperatures (20°C–800°C) was systematically investigated via uniaxial quasistatic and dynamic tests.

The split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) apparatus was utilized to perform dynamic mechanical tests.

The effects of temperature, strain, and strain rate on the dynamic compressive characteristics of U71Mn were discussed, respectively.

The results indicate that the flow response of U71Mn is both temperature-sensitive and strain rate-sensitive.

However, the influence of temperature on the flow response is more remarkable than that of strain rate.

On the basis of the experimental data, the original and modified Johnson-Cook (JC) models of the studied material were established, respectively.

Using correlation coefficient and average absolute relative error parameters, it is revealed that better agreement between the experimental and predicted stress is reached by the modified JC model, which demonstrates that the modified one can characterize the mechanical behavior of the studied material preferably.