Straightening of a wavy strip: An elastic-plastic contact problem including snap-through

The nonlinear behavior of a wave like deformed metal strip during the levelling process were calculated. Elastic-plastic material behavior as well as nonlinearities due to large deformations were considered. The considered problem lead to a combined stability and contact problem. It is shown that, despite the initially concentrated loading, neglecting the change of loading conditions due to altered contact domains may lead to a significant error in the evaluation of the nonlinear behavior and particularly to an underestimation of the stability limit load. The stability was examined by considering the load deflection path and the behavior of a load-dependent current stiffness parameter in combination with the determinant of the current stiffness matrix.