Local anisotropy of fracture behaviour in cold drawn pearlitic steels supplied in the form of prestressing wires: A Picassian Approach

The paper studies the local anisotropy of fracture behaviour in heavily cold drawn pearlitic steels supplied in the form of prestressing steel wires for prestressed concrete. A study is presented of the tensile fracture behaviour of progressively drawn pearlitic steels obtained from real cold drawing chains, including each drawing step from the initial hot rolled bar (not cold drawn at all) to the final commercial product (prestressing steel wire). To this end, samples of the different wires were tested up to fracture by means of standard tension test, and later, all the fracture surfaces were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A locally anisotropic fracture behaviour is observed in the cold drawn wires that does not become global due to the lack of stress triaxiality (constraint) in the smooth (unnotched) wires.