Validation of pneumatic crack detection in hole expansion test

Abstract According to the standard ISO 16630, the hole expansion test (HET) has to be stopped at the instant when the first through-thickness crack appears at the edge of the hole. The detection of the crack is challenging, since the maximum opening width should not exceed 0.1 mm at the inner diameter according to the newest version of the standard from 2017. A pneumatic crack detection has been introduced in which a pressure drop is used to identify the through-thickness crack. In the present paper, this method for stopping the hole expansion test is validated. It was tested for steels with different edge crack sensitivities and compared to stopping with force drop method. Therefore, the curves of pressure and force have been analysed. The influence of hole insertion method (shear cutting or abrasive water jet cutting) as well as specific hole expansion parameters (punch speed, air pressure) have been investigated. Besides the expanded diameters to evaluate the edge crack sensitivity, the opening width of the edge cracks were analysed to determine the suitability of the crack detection methods for different hole expansion ratios (HER).