Texture development and plastic anisotropy of B.C.C. strain hardening sheet metals

A Taylor-like polycrystal model is adopted here to investigate the plastic behavior of body centered cubic (b.c.c.) sheet metals under plane-strain compression and the subsequent in-plane biaxial stretching conditions. The <111> pencil glide system is chosen for the slip mechanism for b.c.c. sheet metals. The {110} <111> and {112} <111> slip systems are also considered. Plane-strain compression is used to simulate the cold rolling processes of a low-carbon steel sheet. Based on the polycrystal model, pole figures for the sheet metal after plane-strain compression are obtained and compared with the corresponding experimental results. Also, the simulated plane-strain stress—strain relations are compared with the corresponding experimental results. For the sheet metal subjected to the subsequent in-plane biaxial stretching and shear, plastic potential surfaces are determined at a given small amount of plastic work. With the assumption of the equivalence of the plastic potential and the yield function with normality flow, the yield surfaces based on the simulations for the sheet metal are compared with those based on several phenomenological planar anisotropic yield criteria. The effects of the slip system and the magnitude of plastic work on the shape and size of the yield surfaces are shown. The plastic anisotropy of the sheet metal is investigated in terms of the uniaxial yield stresses in different planar orientations and the corresponding values of the anisotropy parameter R, defined as the ratio of the width plastic strain rate to the through-thickness plastic strain rate under in-plane uniaxial tensile loading. The uniaxial yield stresses and the values of R at different planar orientations from the polycrystal model can be fitted well by a yield function recently proposed by Barlat et al. (1997b).