Calibration and Validation of Complex Material Models of a 6061-T6 Aluminum

Accurate modeling of complex, rate-dependent material behavior is critical for predicting performance in extreme environments relevant to stockpile stewardship. This work validates a material model that includes material orientation and strain-rate dependence, which was calibrated using a series of uniaxial and multi-axial tests across a wide range of strain rates. The model is validated using novel hole-expansion experiments, where a flat punch expands a hole in a 6061-T6 aluminum sheet under both quasistatic and dynamic loading. Full-field strain measurements from high-speed imaging are compared to finite-element simulations. A good correlation between experimental and simulation results confirms the model’s accuracy and highlights the hole-expansion experiment as a powerful tool for validating advanced material models. Success in solving this problem forms the foundation for future work solving the inverse, where the hole-expansion experiment is used alone to calibrate models.