Elasto-plastic coupling within a thermodynamic strain space formulation of plasticity

Elasto-plastic coupling is studied within a general thermodynamic train space formulation of rate-independent plasticity by means of plastic internal variables. The strain space formulation offers a unified approach in treating both stable and unstable material behavior simultaneously. The conditions on elasto-plastic coupling are imposed by the second law of thermodynamics and the consistency equation in the strain space formulation, and are expressed by two inequalities. This is further illustrated by specific examples where explicit necessary and sufficient conditions on the elastic moduli and their change with plastic deformation are derived for the two inequalities to be satisfied.