Determination of tearing energy from uniaxial tension tests of aluminum alloy sheet

Tearing energy of AA5010 aluminum alloy sheets has been studied by the single tensile testing (STT) and multiple tensile testing (MTT) methods. The total energy required to tear the specimens was assumed to be composed of two components; one associated with uniform plastic deformation, which occurs in the work-hardening range of the material, and the other with post-uniform deformation and tearing which leads to the failure of the specimens. In the STT method, tearing energy was calculated by subtracting the plastic deformation energy, dissipated in the uniform deformation range, from the total energy absorbed by a single specimen during tension. In the MTT method, which uses different test-pieces of various gage lengths, tearing energy was calculated by plotting the total energy divided by the specimen cross-sectional area against the gage length of the specimens. In this plot, a straight line is obtained the intercept of which gives the value of tearing energy. The results have been compared and the advantages and limitations of each method are discussed.