A crystal plasticity model for strain-path changes in metals

A model is proposed that deals with the transient mechanical anisotropy during strain-path changes in metals. The basic mechanism is assumed to be latent hardening or softening of the slip systems, dependent on if they are active or passive during deformation, reflecting microstructural mechanisms that depend on the deformation mode rather than on the crystallography. The new model captures the experimentally observed behaviour of cross hardening in agreement with experiments for an AA3103 aluminium alloy. Generic results for strain reversals qualitatively agree with two types of behaviour reported in the literature – with or without a plateau on the stress–strain curve. The influence of the model parameters is studied through detailed calculations of the response of three selected parameter combinations, including the evolution of yield surface sections subsequent to 10% pre-strain. The mathematical complexity is kept to a minimum by avoiding explicit predictions related directly to underpinning microstructural changes. The starting point of the model is a combination of conventional texture and work hardening approaches, where an adapted full-constraints Taylor theory and a simple single-crystal work-hardening model for monotonic strain are used. However, the framework of the model is not restricted to these particular models.     

New flow rules in elasto-viscoplastic constitutive models for spheroidal graphite cast-iron

A specific flow rules and the corresponding constitutive elasto-viscoplastic model combined with new experimental strategy are introduced in order to represent a spheroidal graphite cast-iron behaviour on a wide range of strain, strain rate and temperature. A “full model” is first proposed to correctly reproduce the alloy behaviour even for very small strain levels. A “light model” with a bit poorer experimental agreement but a simpler formulation is also proposed. These macroscopic models, whose equations are based on physical phenomena observed at the dislocation scale, are able to cope with the various load conditions tested – progressive straining and cyclic hardening tests – and to correctly describe anisothermal evolution. The accuracy of these two models and the experimental databases to which they are linked is estimated on different types of experimental tests and compared with the accuracy of more standard Chaboche-type constitutive models. Each test leads to the superiority of the “full model”, particularly for slow strain rates regimes. After developing a material user subroutine, FEM simulations are performed on Abaqus for a car engine exhaust manifold and confirm the good results obtained from the experimental basis. We obtain more accurate results than those given by more traditional laws. A very good correlation is observed between the simulations and the engine bench tests.     

Comparison of the work-hardening of metallic sheets using tensile and shear strain paths

This work deals with the characterization of the kinematic work-hardening of a bake-hardening steel. A shear test device has been designed and its use for the characterization of the work-hardening of sheet metals is described. Two main results are presented. Firstly, a local strain measurement, based on the following of three dots drawn on the gauge area, gives the evolution of the strain tensor eigenvalues during the test. It is shown, by comparing the theoretical kinematics of simple shear with a slightly perturbated one, that the strain state is close to the ideal one in the center of the gauge area. Secondly, reversal of the shear direction is performed after several prestrain and the evolution of the kinematic work-hardening with the equivalent plastic strain has been identified using an anisotropic elasto-viscoplastic model of Hill 1948 type. Isotropic and kinematic contributions of the work-hardening are also calculated from loading–unloading tensile tests and are compared to those obtained from the simple shear tests. The results show a discrepancy between both identification for the isotropic and the kinematic hardening. However, they are in agreement concerning the evolution of the global work-hardening.     

Experimental study of the phase transformation plasticity of 16MND5 low carbon steel under multiaxial loading

This paper is concerned with the experimental behaviour of a 16MND5 steel (french vessel steel) under complex loading. A particular attention is paid to plasticity induced by phase transformation. We present an experimental set-up to apply thermo-mechanical loads under tension-torsion. This apparatus enables us to reach temperature of 1200 °C at a maximum heating rate of 60 °C s⁻¹ and a high cooling rate of −30 °C s⁻¹. A series of tests is performed in order to show the rule of loading on transformation plasticity.     

A multi-axial, multimechanism based constitutive model for the comprehensive representation of the evolutionary response of SMAs under general thermomechanical loading conditions

We present a fully general, three dimensional, constitutive model for Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), aimed at describing all of the salient features of SMA evolutionary response under complex thermomechanical loading conditions. In this, we utilize the mathematical formulation we have constructed, along with a single set of the model’s material parameters, to demonstrate the capturing of numerous responses that are experimentally observed in the available SMA literature. This includes uniaxial, multi-axial, proportional, non-proportional, monotonic, cyclic, as well as other complex thermomechanical loading conditions, in conjunction with a wide range of temperature variations. The success of the presented model is mainly attributed to the following two main factors. First, we use multiple inelastic mechanisms to organize the exchange between the energy stored and energy dissipated during the deformation history. Second, we adhere strictly to the well established mathematical and thermodynamical requirements of convexity, associativity, normality, etc. in formulating the evolution equations governing the model behavior, written in terms of the generalized internal stress/strain tensorial variables associated with the individual inelastic mechanisms. This has led to two important advantages: (a) it directly enabled us to obtain the limiting/critical transformation surfaces in the spaces of both stress and strain, as importantly required in capturing SMA behavior; (b) as a byproduct, this also led, naturally, to the exhibition of the apparent deviation from normality, when the transformation strain rate vectors are plotted together with the surfaces in the space of external/global stresses, that has been demonstrated in some recent multi-axial, non-proportional experiments.     

Advances in experiments on metal sheets and tubes in support of constitutive modeling and forming simulations

This work is a review of experimental methods for observing and modeling the anisotropic plastic behavior of metal sheets and tubes under a variety of loading paths, such as biaxial compression tests; biaxial tension tests on metal sheets and tubes using closed-loop electrohydraulic testing machines; the abrupt strain path change method for detecting a yield vertex and subsequent yield loci without unloading; in-plane stress reversal tests on metal sheets; and multistage tension tests. Observed material responses are compared with the predictions of phenomenological plasticity models. Special attention is paid to the plastic deformation behavior of materials commonly used in industry, and to verifying the validity of conventional anisotropic yield criteria for those materials and associated flow rules at large plastic strains. The effects of using appropriate anisotropic yield criteria on the accuracy of simulations of forming defects, such as large springback and fracture, are also presented to highlight the importance of accurate material testing and modeling.     

Onset of necking in electro-magnetically formed rings

The electromagnetic forming (EMF) process is an attractive manufacturing technique, which uses electromagnetic (Lorentz) body forces to fabricate metallic parts. One of the many advantages of EMF is the considerable ductility increase observed in several metals, with aluminum featuring prominently among them. The quantitative explanation of this phenomenon is the primary motivation of this work.To study the ductility increase due to EMF, an aluminum ring is placed outside a fixed coil, which is connected to a capacitor. Upon the capacitor's discharge, the time varying current in the coil induces a larger current in the ring specimen and the resulting Lorentz forces make it expand. The coupled coil-ring electromagnetic and thermomechanical problem is solved, using an experimentally obtained constitutive model for a particular aluminum alloy. Our results show that for realistic imperfections, the EMF ring starts necking at strains about six times larger than its static counterpart, as observed experimentally. This study establishes the importance of solving the fully coupled electromagnetic and thermomechanical problem and provides insight on how different constitutive parameters influence ductility in an EMF process.     

Cyclic behaviour of short glass fibre reinforced polyamide: Experimental study and constitutive equations

Polymer matrix composites are widely used in the automotive industry and undergo fatigue loadings. The investigation of the nonlinear cyclic behaviour of such materials is a required preliminary work for a confident fatigue design, but has not involved many publications in the literature. This paper presents an extensive experimental study conducted on a polyamide 66 reinforced with 35 wt% of short glass fibres (PA66 GF35), at room temperature. The material was tested in two conditions: dry-as-moulded (DAM) and at the equilibrium with air containing 50% of relative humidity (RH50).An exhaustive experimental campaign in tensile mode has been carried out, including various strain or stress rates, complex mechanical histories and local thermo-mechanical recordings. Such an extended database allowed us to highlight several complex physical phenomena: viscoelastic effects at different time scales, irrecoverable mechanisms, non-linear kinematic hardening, non-linear viscous flow rule, cyclic softening.Taking into account this advanced analysis, a constitutive model describing the cyclic behaviour is proposed. As the experimental database only includes uniaxial tensile tests, the general 3D anisotropic frame is reduced to an uniaxial model valid for a specific orientation distribution. The robust identification process is based on tests which enable the uncoupling between the underlined mechanical features. This strategy leads to a model which accurately predicts the cyclic behaviour of conditioned as well as dry materials under complex tensile loadings.     

A constitutive model for plastically anisotropic solids with non-spherical voids

Plastic constitutive relations are derived for a class of anisotropic porous materials consisting of coaxial spheroidal voids, arbitrarily oriented relative to the embedding orthotropic matrix. The derivations are based on nonlinear homogenization, limit analysis and micromechanics. A variational principle is formulated for the yield criterion of the effective medium and specialized to a spheroidal representative volume element containing a confocal spheroidal void and subjected to uniform boundary deformation. To obtain closed form equations for the effective yield locus, approximations are introduced in the limit-analysis based on a restricted set of admissible microscopic velocity fields. Evolution laws are also derived for the microstructure, defined in terms of void volume fraction, aspect ratio and orientation, using material incompressibility and Eshelby-like concentration tensors. The new yield criterion is an extension of the well known isotropic Gurson model. It also extends previous analyses of uncoupled effects of void shape and material anisotropy on the effective plastic behavior of solids containing voids. Preliminary comparisons with finite element calculations of voided cells show that the model captures non-trivial effects of anisotropy heretofore not picked up by void growth models.     

Visco-plastic constitutive modeling on Ohno-Wang kinematic hardening rule for uniaxial ratcheting behavior of Z2CND18.12N steel

Experimental results of monotonic uniaxial tensile tests at different strain rates and the reversed strain cycling test showed the characteristics of rate-dependence and cyclic hardening of Z2CND18.12N austenitic stainless steel at room temperature, respectively. Based on the Ohno-Wang kinematic hardening rule, a visco-plastic constitutive model incorporated with isotropic hardening was developed to describe the uniaxial ratcheting behavior of Z2CND18.12N steel under various stress-controlled loading conditions. Predicted results of the developed model agreed better with experimental results when the ratcheting strain level became higher, but the developed model overestimated the ratcheting deformation in other cases. A modified model was proposed to improve the prediction accuracy. In the modified model, the parameter m_i of the Ohno-Wang kinematic hardening rule was developed to evolve with the accumulated plastic strain. Simulation results of the modified model proved much better agreement with experiments.     

Mechanics of biomolecules

Over the last few years molecular biomechanics has emerged as a new field in which theoretical and experimental studies of the mechanics of proteins and nucleic acids have become a focus, and the importance of mechanical forces and motions to the fundamentals of biology and biochemistry has begun to be recognized. In particular, single-molecule biomechanics of DNA extension, bending and twisting; protein domain motion, deformation and unfolding; and the generation of mechanical forces and motions by biomolecular motors has become a new frontier in life sciences. There is an increasing need for a more systematic study of the basic issues involved in molecular biomechanics, and a more active participation of researchers in applied mechanics. Here we review some of the advances in this field over the last few years, explore the connection between mechanics and biochemistry, and discuss the concepts, issues, approaches and challenges, aiming to stimulating a broader interest in developing molecular biomechanics.     

A fundamental model of cyclic instabilities in thermal barrier systems

Cyclic morphological instabilities in the thermally grown oxide (TGO) represent a source of failure in some thermal barrier systems. Observations and simulations have indicated that several factors interact to cause these instabilities to propagate: (i) thermal cycling; (ii) thermal expansion misfit; (iii) oxidation strain; (iv) yielding in the TGO and the bond coat; and (v) initial geometric imperfections. This study explores a fundamental understanding of the propagation phenomenon by devising a spherically symmetric model that can be solved analytically. The applicability of this model is addressed through comparison with simulations conducted for representative geometric imperfections and by analogy with the elastic/plastic indentation of a half space. Finite element analysis is used to confirm and extend the model. The analysis identifies the dependencies of the instability on the thermo-mechanical properties of the system. The crucial role of the in-plane growth strain is substantiated, as well as the requirement for bond coat yielding. It is demonstrated that yielding of the TGO is essential and is, in fact, the phenomenon that differentiates between cyclic and isothermal responses.     

Nonlinear constitutive models from nanoindentation tests using artificial neural networks

This paper presents a new approach using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) models to simulate the response during nanohardness tests of a variety of materials with nonlinear behavior. The ANNs continuous input and output variables usually include material parameters, indentation deflection, and resisting force. Different ANN models, including dimensionless input/output variables, are generated and trained with discrete finite-element (FE) simulations with different geometries and nonlinear material parameters. Only the monotonic loading part of the load–displacement indentation response is used to generate the trained ANN models. This is a departure from classical indentation simulations or tests where typically the unloading portion is used to determine the stiffness and hardness. The experimental part of this study includes nanoindentation tests performed on a silicon (Si) substrate with and without a nanocrystalline copper (Cu) film. The new ANN models are used to back-calculate (inverse problem) the in situ nonlinear material parameters for different copper material systems. The results are compared with available data in the literature. The proposed FE–ANN modeling approach is very effective and can be used in calibrating and predicting the in situ inelastic material properties using the monotonic part of the indentation response and for depths above 50 nm where the overall resisting force represents a continuum response.     

A multiaxial constitutive model for concrete in the fire situation: Theoretical formulation

This paper aims to develop a multiaxial concrete model for implementation in finite element software dedicated to the analysis of structures in fire. The need for proper concrete model remains a challenging task in structural fire engineering because of the complexity of the concrete mechanical behavior characterization and the severe requirements for the material models raised by the development of performance-based design. A fully three-dimensional model is developed based on the combination of elastoplasticity and damage theories. The state of damage in concrete, assumed isotropic, is modeled by means of a fourth order damage tensor to capture the unilateral effect. The concrete model comprises a limited number of parameters that can be identified by three simple tests at ambient temperature. At high temperatures, a generic transient creep model is included to take into account explicitly the effect of transient creep strain. The numerical implementation of the concrete model in a finite element software is presented and a series of numerical simulations are conducted for validation. The concrete behavior is accurately captured in a large range of temperature and stress states. A limitation appears when modeling the concrete post-peak behavior in highly confined stress states, due to the coupling assumption between damage and plasticity, but the considered levels of triaxial confinement are unusual stress states in structural concrete.     

Experimental investigation and modeling of non-monotonic creep behavior in polymers

The deformation behavior of two unfilled engineering thermoplastics, ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and polycarbonate (PC), has been investigated in creep test conditions. It has been found that a loading history (prior to the creep test) comprising of loading to a maximum stress or strain value followed by partial unloading to arrive at the target stress value can greatly modify the strain-time behavior. Under such a test protocol, while the expected increase in strain during creep (constant tensile load) is observed, at relatively low creep stresses specimens have also demonstrated a monotonic decrease in strain. In an intermediate stress range, specimens have demonstrated time dependent behavior comprising of a transition from decreasing to increasing strain during creep in tension. This paper presents experimental results to delineate these findings and explore the effect of prior strain rate on the qualitative and quantitative changes in the output (strain-time) behavior. Furthermore, modification of the viscoplasticity theory based on overstress (VBO) model into a double element configuration is introduced. These changes confer upon the model the ability to yield non-monotonic behavior in creep, and supporting simulation results have been included. These changes, therefore, allow the model to simulate strain rate sensitivity, creep, relaxation, and recovery behavior, but more importantly address the issue of non-monotonic changes in creep and relaxation when a loading history involves some degree of unloading.     

Experimental observations of evolving yield loci in biaxially strained AA5754-O

Experimental measurement of the plastic biaxial mechanical response for an aluminum alloy (AA5754-O) sheet metal is presented. Traditional methods of multiaxial sheet metal testing require the use of finite element analysis (FEA) or other assumptions of material response to determine the multiaxial true stress versus true strain behavior of the as-received sheet material. The method used here strives to produce less ambiguous measurements of data for a larger strain range than previously possible, through a combination of the Marciniak flat bottom ram test and an X-ray diffraction technique for stress measurement. The study is performed in conjunction with a study of the microstructural changes that occur during deformation, and these microstructural results are briefly mentioned in this work. Issues of calibration and applicability are discussed, and results are presented for uniaxial (U), plane strain (PS), and balanced biaxial (BB) extension. The results show repeatable behavior (within quantified uncertainties) for U to 20%, PS to almost 15%, and BB to above 20% in-plane strains. The results are first compared with three common yield locus models (von Mises’, Hill’48, and Hosford’79), and show some unexpected results in the shape change of the yield locus at high strain levels (>5% strain). These changes include the rotation of the locus toward the von Mises surface and elongation in the balanced biaxial direction. Comparison with a more complex yield locus model (Yld2000-2d with eight adjustable parameters) showed that the locus elongation in the biaxial direction could be fit well (for a specific level of work), but at the detriment of fit to the plane strain data. Artificially large plastic strain ratios would be needed to match both the biaxial and plane strain behavior even with this more complex model.     

A constitutive model for shape memory alloys accounting for thermomechanical coupling

This paper presents a generalized Zaki-Moumni (ZM) model for shape memory alloys (SMAs) [cf. Zaki, W., Moumni, Z., 2007a. A three-dimensional model of the thermomechanical behavior of shape memory alloys. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 55, 2455-2490 accounting for thermomechanical coupling. To this end, the expression of the Helmholtz free energy is modified in order to derive the heat equation in accordance with the principles of thermodynamics. An algorithm is proposed to implement the coupled ZM model into a finite element code, which is then used to solve a thermomechanical boundary value problem involving a superelastic SMA structure. The model is validated against experimental data available in the literature. Strain rate dependence of the mechanical pseudoelastic response is taken into account with good qualitative as well as quantitative accuracy in the case of moderate strain rates and for mechanical results in the case of high strain rates. However, only qualitative agreement is achieved for thermal results at high strain rates. It is shown that this discrepancy is mainly due to localization effects which are note taken into account in our model. Analyzing the influence of the heat sources on the material response shows that the mechanical hysteresis is mainly due to intrinsic dissipation, whereas the thermal response is governed by latent heat. In addition, the variation of the area of the hysteresis loop with respect to the strain rate is discussed. It is found that this variation is not monotonic and reaches a maximum value for a certain value of strain rate.