Aluminum sheets used for beverage cans show a significant anisotropic plastic material behavior in sheet metal forming operations. In a deep drawing process of cups this anisotropy leads to a non-uniform height, i.e., an earing profile. The prediction of this earing profiles is important for the optimization of the forming process. In most cases the earing behavior cannot be predicted precisely based on phenomenological material models. In the presented work a micromechanical, texture-based model is used to simulate the first two steps (cupping and redrawing) of a can forming process. The predictions of the earing profile after each step are compared to experimental data. The mechanical modeling is done with a large strain elastic visco-plastic crystal plasticity material model with Norton type flow rule for each crystal. The response of the polycrystal is approximated by a Taylor type homogenization scheme. The simulations are carried out in the framework of the finite element method. The shape of the earing profile from the finite element simulation is compared to experimental profiles.
