Exploring the strain rate influence on shear yield behavior of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene: Experimental and numerical study

Most experimental and numerical studies are limited to examining the effect of strain rate on the compressive and tensile yield behavior of Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS), an amorphous material of significant industrial relevance, rather than its shear yield behavior; therefore, this study is dedicated to addressing this notable gap in the literature by exploring the effect of strain rate on the shear yield behavior of ABS. To this end, shear tests were carried out using the Wyoming version of the Iosipescu (V-notched) shear test fixture at five distinct loading rates, ranging from 5 × 10−3 to 1 × 101 mm/s, which correspond to strain rates between 5.5 × 10−4 s−1 and 7 × 10−1 s−1. Shear strain distributions in the specimens were measured using the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique. The shear test results not only revealed a substantial increase in the shear yield strength of ABS with increasing strain rate, but also demonstrated that the shear yield strength of ABS is more sensitive to strain rate than its compressive and tensile yield strengths. The findings of the study also suggested that using shear-tension test data pairs at the same strain rates is more effective for determining the hydrostatic pressure sensitivity parameter than using tension-compression and shear-compression test data pairs. The experimental results were validated against numerical predictions obtained through finite element analyses employing an elastic-viscoplastic constitutive model, which comprehensively accounted for non-linear material properties, geometric complexities, and non-linearities arising from boundary contacts.