Potentials for the modified Cam-Clay model

Energy and dissipation pseudo-potentials are employed to derive constitutive relationships, in the context of thermodynamic concepts, for the widely used Modified Cam-Clay (MCC) model for soil mechanics. A variational formulation of the MCC evolution equations is proposed in this paper. Since plastic collapse of MCC soils cannot be embedded in the classical limit analysis theory, finding the critical amplification of the load that produces plastic collapse is formulated in the form of a system of equations and inequalities. Then, a mixed minimization principle is proposed for the plastic collapse analysis of MCC soils. This principle is obtained by the application of the variational formulation for the flow law introduced in the first part of the article.     

Well-posedness of a model of strain gradient plasticity for plastically irrotational materials

The initial boundary value problem corresponding to a model of strain gradient plasticity due to [Gurtin, M., Anand, L., 2005. A theory of strain gradient plasticity for isotropic, plastically irrotational materials. Part I: Small deformations. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 53, 1624–1649] is formulated as a variational inequality, and analysed. The formulation is a primal one, in that the unknown variables are the displacement, plastic strain, and the hardening parameter. The focus of the analysis is on those properties of the problem that would ensure existence of a unique solution. It is shown that this is the case when hardening takes place. A similar property does not hold for the case of softening. The model is therefore extended by adding to it terms involving the divergence of plastic strain. For this extended model the desired property of coercivity holds, albeit only on the boundary of the set of admissible functions.     

Strain gradient plasticity,strengthening effects and plastic limit analysis

Within the framework of isotropic strain gradient plasticity, a rate-independent constitutive model exhibiting size dependent hardening is formulated and discussed with particular concern to its strengthening behavior. The latter is modelled as a (fictitious) isotropic hardening featured by a potential which is a positively degree-one homogeneous function of the effective plastic strain and its gradient. This potential leads to a strengthening law in which the strengthening stress, i.e. the increase of the plastically undeformed material initial yield stress, is related to the effective plastic strain through a second order PDE and related higher order boundary conditions. The plasticity flow laws, with the role there played by the strengthening stress, are addressed and shown to admit a maximum dissipation principle. For an idealized elastic perfectly plastic material with strengthening effects, the plastic collapse load problem of a micro/nano scale structure is addressed and its basic features under the light of classical plastic limit analysis are pointed out. It is found that the conceptual framework of classical limit analysis, including the notion of rigid-plastic behavior, remains valid. The lower bound and upper bound theorems of classical limit analysis are extended to strengthening materials. A static-type maximum principle and a kinematic-type minimum principle, consequences of the lower and upper bound theorems, respectively, are each independently shown to solve the collapse load problem. These principles coincide with their respective classical counterparts in the case of simple material. Comparisons with existing theories are provided. An application of this nonclassical plastic limit analysis to a simple shear model is also presented, in which the plastic collapse load is shown to increase with the decreasing sample size (Hall–Petch size effects).     

Plasticity with non-linear kinematic hardening: modelling and shakedown analysis by the bipotential approach

The class of generalised standard materials is not relevant to model the non-associative constitutive equations. The possible generalisation of Fenchel's inequality proposed by de Saxcé allows the recovery of flow rule normality for non-associative behaviours. The normality rule is written in the weak form of an implicit relation. This leads to the introduction of the class of implicit standard materials. This formulation is applied to constitutive equations involving non-linear kinematic hardening, indispensable to describe accurately and realistically the cyclic plasticity of metallic materials. For these plastic flow rules shakedown bound theorems can be extended; an analytical example of the shakedown of a thin-walled tube under constant traction and alternate cyclic torsion is considered and the obtained solution is proved to be exact.     

CrMnFeCoNi纳米晶温度相关的拉伸行为研究

摘要：高熵合金是一种由多种主元元素组成的新型合金。实验研究表明等原子比CrMnFeCoNi高熵合金在低温下具有比室温更高的拉伸强度和断裂韧性。本文针对这一现象,利用分子动力学模拟对平均晶粒尺寸为6 nm的CrMnFeCoNi纳米晶在300、200和77 K下分别进行拉伸模拟。模拟研究揭示了纳米尺度CrMnFeCoNi高熵合金力学行为的温度效应和强韧机理。微结构演化分析表明：低温下,塑性变形阶段,滑移系开动的较少,位错滑移所受的阻力越大,屈服强度和抗拉强度越大;模型破坏时,孔洞缺陷形核较慢,更多孔洞缺陷演化成断口,更多的断口分摊拉伸应变,使得高熵合金纳米晶的低温韧性更好。     

Finite-element formulations for problems of large elastic-plastic deformation

An Eulerian finite element formulation is presented for problems of large elastic-plastic flow. The method is based on Hill's variational principle for incremental deformations, and is ideally suited to isotropically hardening Prandtl-Reuss materials. Further, the formulation is given in a manner which allows any conventional finite element program, for “small strain” elastic-plastic analysis, to be simply and rigorously adapted to problems involving arbitrary amounts of deformation and arbitrary levels of stress in comparison to plastic deformation moduli. The method is applied to a necking bifurcation analysis of a bar in plane-strain tension.The paper closes with a unified general formulation of finite element equations, both Lagrangian and Eulerian, for large deformations, with arbitrary choice of the conjugate stress and strain measures. Further, a discussion is given of other proposed formulations for elastic-plastic finite element analysis at large strain, and the inadequacies of some of these are commented upon.     

Large strain responses of elastic-perfect plasticity and kinematic hardening plasticity with the logarithmic rate: Swift effect in torsion

A new Eulerian rate type elastic-perfectly plastic model has recently been established by utilizing the newly discovered logarithmic rate. It has been proved that this model is unique among the objective elastic-perfectly plastic models with all objective corotational stress rates and other known objective stress rates by virtue of the self-consistency criterion: the hypoelastic formulation intended for elastic behaviour must be exactly integrable to deliver a hyperelastic relation. The finite simple shear response of this model has been studied and shown to be reasonable for both shear and normal stress components. On the other hand, a kinematic hardening plasticity model may be formulated by adopting the logarithmic rate. The objective of this work is to further study the large deformation responses of the foregoing two kinds of idealized models, in particular the well-known Swift effect, in torsion of thin-walled cylindrical tubes. A complete, rigorous analysis is made for the orders of magnitude of all stress components. A closed-form solution is obtained for the kinematic hardening plastic case, and an analytical perturbation solution is derived for the elastic-perfectly plastic case. It is shown that the simple idealized kinematic hardening model with the logarithmic rate, which uses only two classical material constants, i.e., the initial (tensile) yield stress and the hardening modulus, may arrive at satisfactory explanation for and reasonable accord with salient features of experimental observation.     

Investigation of solution of Navier–Stokes equations using a variational formulation

A variational formulation for the solution of two dimensional, incompressible viscous flows has been developed by one of the authors.¹ The main objective of the present paper is to demonstrate the applicability of this approach for the solution of practical problems and in particular to investigate the introduction of boundary conditions to the Navier-Stokes equations through a variational formulation. The application of boundary conditions for typical internal and external flow problems is presented. Sample cases include flow around a cylinder and flow through a stepped channel. Quadrilateral, bilinear isoparametric elements are utilized in the formulation. A single-step, implicit, and fully coupled numerical integration scheme based on the variational principle is employed. Presented results include sample cases with different Reynolds numbers for laminar and turbulent flows. Turbulence is modelled using a simple mixing length model. Numerical results show good agreement with existing solutions.     

Nonlocal and gradient rate plasticity

This paper deals with a formulation of nonlocal and gradient plasticity with internal variables. The constitutive model complies with local internal variables which govern kinematic hardening and isotropic softening and with a nonlocal corrective internal variable defined either as the sum between a new internal variable and its spatial weighted average or as the gradient of a measure of plastic strain. The rate constitutive problem is cast in the framework provided by the convex analysis and the potential theory for monotone multivalued operators which provide the suitable tools to perform a theoretical analysis of such nonlocal and gradient problems. The validity of the maximum dissipation theorem is assessed and constitutive variational formulations of the rate model are provided. The structural rate problem for an assigned load rate is then formulated. The related variational formulation in the complete set of state variable is contributed and the methodology to derive variational formulations, with different combinations of the state variables, is explicitly provided. In particular the generalization to the present nonlocal and gradient model of the principles of Prager–Hodge, Greenberg and Capurso–Maier is presented. Finally nonlocal variational formulations provided in the literature are derived as special cases of the proposed model.     

On shakedown analysis in hardening plasticity

The extension of classical shakedown theorems for hardening plasticity is interesting from both theoretical and practical aspects of the theory of plasticity. This problem has been much discussed in the literature. In particular, the model of generalized standard materials gives a convenient framework to derive appropriate results for common models of plasticity with strain-hardening. This paper gives a comprehensive presentation of the subject, in particular, on general results which can be obtained in this framework. The extension of the static shakedown theorem to hardening plasticity is presented at first. It leads by min-max duality to the definition of dual static and kinematic safety coefficients in hardening plasticity. Dual static and kinematic approaches are discussed for common models of isotropic hardening of limited or unlimited kinematic hardening. The kinematic approach also suggests for these models the introduction of a relaxed kinematic coefficient following a method due to Koiter. Some models for soils such as the Cam-clay model are discussed in the same spirit for applications in geomechanics. In particular, new appropriate results concerning the variational expressions of the dual kinematic coefficients are obtained.     

Nonlocal gradient-dependent modeling of plasticity with anisotropic hardening

This work addresses the formulation of the thermodynamics of nonlocal plasticity using the gradient theory. The formulation is based on the nonlocality energy residual introduced by Eringen and Edelen (1972). Gradients are introduced for those variables associated with isotropic and kinematic hardening. The formulation applies to small strain gradient plasticity and makes use of the evanescent memory model for kinematic hardening. This is accomplished using the kinematic flux evolution as developed by Zbib and Aifantis (1988). Therefore, the present theory is a four nonlocal parameter-based theory that accounts for the influence of large variations in the plastic strain, accumulated plastic strain, accumulated plastic strain gradients, and the micromechanical evolution of the kinematic flux. Using the principle of virtual power and the laws of thermodynamics, thermodynamically-consistent equations are derived for the nonlocal plasticity yield criterion and associated flow rule. The presence of higher-order gradients in the plastic strain is shown to enhance a corresponding history variable which arises from the accumulation of the plastic strain gradients. Furthermore, anisotropy is introduced by plastic strain gradients in the form of kinematic hardening. Plastic strain gradients can be attributed to the net Burgers vector, while gradients in the accumulation of plastic strain are responsible for the introduction of isotropic hardening. The equilibrium between internal Cauchy stress and the microstresses conjugate to the higher-order gradients frames the yield criterion, which is obtained from the principle of virtual power. Microscopic boundary conditions, associated with plastic flow, are introduced to supplement the macroscopic boundary conditions of classical plasticity. The nonlocal formulation developed here preserves the classical assumption of local plasticity, wherein plastic flow direction is governed by the deviatoric Cauchy stress. The theory is applied to the problems of thin films on both soft and hard substrates. Numerical solutions are presented for bi-axial tension and simple shear loading of thin films on substrates.     

A variational formulation of the coupled thermo-mechanical boundary-value problem for general dissipative solids

A variational formulation of the coupled thermo-mechanical boundary-value problem for general dissipative solids is presented. The coupled thermo-mechanical boundary-value problem under consideration consists of the equilibrium problem for a deformable, inelastic and dissipative solid with the heat conduction problem appended in addition. The variational formulation allows for general dissipative solids, including finite elastic and plastic deformations, non-Newtonian viscosity, rate sensitivity, arbitrary flow and hardening rules, as well as heat conduction. We show that a joint potential function exists such that both the conservation of energy and the balance of linear momentum equations follow as Euler-Lagrange equations. The identification of the joint potential requires a careful distinction between equilibrium and external temperatures, which are equal at equilibrium. The variational framework predicts the fraction of dissipated energy that is converted to heat. A comparison of this prediction and experimental data suggests that α-titanium and Al2024-T conform to the variational framework.     

A unified residual-based thermodynamic framework for strain gradient theories of plasticity

A unified thermodynamic framework for gradient plasticity theories in small deformations is provided, which is able to accommodate (almost) all existing strain gradient plasticity theories. The concept of energy residual (the long range power density transferred to the generic particle from the surrounding material and locally spent to sustain some extra plastic power) plays a crucial role. An energy balance principle for the extra plastic power leads to a representation formula of the energy residual in terms of a long range stress, typically of the third order, a macroscopic counterpart of the micro-forces acting on the GNDs (Geometrically Necessary Dislocations). The insulation condition (implying that no long range energy interactions are allowed between the body and the exterior environment) is used to derive the higher order boundary conditions, as well as to ascertain a principle of the plastic power redistribution in which the energy residual plays the role of redistributor and guarantees that the actual plastic dissipation satisfies the second thermodynamics principle. The (nonlocal) Clausius-Duhem inequality, into which the long range stress enters aside the Cauchy stress, is used to derive the thermodynamic restrictions on the constitutive equations, which include the state equations and the dissipation inequality. Consistent with the latter inequality, the evolution laws are formulated for rate-independent models. These are shown to exhibit multiple size effects, namely (energetic) size effects on the hardening rate, as well as combined (dissipative) size effects on both the yield strength (intrinsic resistance to the onset of plastic strain) and the flow strength (resistance exhibited during plastic flow). A friction analogy is proposed as an aid for a better understanding of these two kinds of strengthening effects. The relevant boundary-value rate problem is addressed, for which a solution uniqueness theorem and a minimum variational principle are provided. Comparisons with other existing gradient theories are presented. The dissipation redistribution mechanism is illustrated by means of a simple shear model.     

An hysteretic quadrilateral plane stress element

In this work, a new plane stress element is proposed for the nonlinear static and dynamic analysis of plane stress/plane strain problems. The four node quadrilateral element formulation for the elastic case is extended by introducing a novel hysteretic constitutive relation, based on the Bouc–Wen model of hysteresis. The hysteretic model introduced is directly derived from the governing equations of classical plasticity based on the flow rule and specific hardening law. The stiffness matrix of the element is formulated using the principle of virtual displacements, where the elastic stress–strain relation is substituted by the hysteretic relation proposed. The derived stiffness matrix is expressed as a smooth function of the internal stress field both in the elastic and inelastic regime. The efficiency of the proposed element in the simulation of the cyclic behavior in plane structures is presented through illustrative examples.     

The role of dissipation and defect energy in variational formulations of problems in strain-gradient plasticity. Part 1: polycrystalline plasticity

A general set of flow laws and associated variational formulations are constructed for small-deformation rate-independent problems in strain-gradient plasticity. The framework is based on the thermodynamically consistent theory due to Gurtin and Anand (J Mech Phys Solids 53:1624–1649, 2005), and includes as variables a set of microstresses which have both energetic and dissipative components. The flow law is of associative type. It is expressed as a normality law with respect to a convex but otherwise arbitrary yield function, or equivalently in terms of the corresponding dissipation function. Two cases studied are, first, an extension of the classical Hill-Mises or J ₂ flow law and second, a form written as a linear sum of the magnitudes of the plastic strain and strain gradient. This latter form is motivated by work of Evans and Hutchinson (Acta Mater 57:1675–1688, 2009) and Nix and Gao (J Mech Phys Solids 46:411–425, 1998), who show that it leads to superior correspondence with experimental results, at least for particular classes of problems. The corresponding yield function is obtained by a duality argument. The variational problem is based on the flow rule expressed in terms of the dissipation function, and the problem is formulated as a variational inequality in the displacement, plastic strain, and hardening parameter. Dissipative components of the microstresses, which are indeterminate, are absent from the formulation. Existence and uniqueness of solutions are investigated for the generalized Hill-Mises and linear-sum dissipation functions, and for various combinations of defect energy. The conditions for well-posedness of the problem depend critically on the choice of dissipation function, and on the presence or otherwise of a defect energy in the plastic strain or plastic strain gradient, and of internal-variable hardening.     

A new hybrid stress element method for the analysis of elastoplastic solids

Based on a modified Hellinger/Reissner variational principle which includes the equivalent stress, equivalent plastic strain and non-conforming displacement increments as independent variables, a quadrilateral isoparametric hybrid stress element for the analysis of elastoplastic problem is proposed. By this formulation, the yield criterion and flow rule are satisfied in an average sense and greater accuracy can be obtained by using non-conforming displacement. A numerical example is presented to show that the present model has high accuracy and computational effectiveness.This project is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of the State Education Commission.     

Simple shear of a strain-hardening elastoplastic hollow circular cylinder

Stress and deformation analysis of the simple shear at finite strain of a strain-hardening elastoplastic hollow circular cylinder is given. Both isotropic and anistotropic hardening models are considered. In the case of isotropic hardening, there is a closed from analytical solution. No normal stresses exist in this case. Purely kinematic hardening with a Mises-type yield condition is utilized as a model of anisotropic hardening. Conventional (average) spin is taken to construct the objective Jaumann derivative needed in the structure of the corresponding constitutive laws. Governing partial differential equations are derived and solved numerically to give stress and deformation distribution following the advance of plastic flow. The extent or range of the appropriateness of the considered constitutive model is also established.     

A bipotential-based limit analysis and homogenization of ductile porous materials with non-associated Drucker–Prager matrix

In Gurson's footsteps, different authors have proposed macroscopic plastic models for porous solid with pressure-sensitive dilatant matrix obeying the normality law (associated materials). The main objective of the present paper is to extend this class of models to porous materials in the context of non-associated plasticity. This is the case of Drucker–Prager matrix for which the dilatancy angle is different from the friction one, and classical limit analysis theory cannot be applied. For such materials, the second last author has proposed a relevant modeling approach based on the concept of bipotential, a function of both dual variables, the plastic strain rate and stress tensors. On this ground, after recalling the basic elements of the Drucker–Prager model, we present the corresponding variational principles and the extended limit analysis theorems. Then, we formulate a new variational approach for the homogenization of porous materials with a non-associated matrix. This is implemented by considering the hollow sphere model with a non-associated Drucker–Prager matrix. The proposed procedure delivers a closed-form expression of the macroscopic bifunctional from which the criterion and a non-associated flow rule are readily obtained for the porous material. It is shown that these general results recover several available models as particular cases. Finally, the established results are assessed and validated by comparing their predictions to those obtained from finite element computations carried out on a cell representing the considered class of materials.     

Hamilton principle for an inviscid compressible fluid model in Eulerian coordinates

It is shown that the well-known variational principles for the ideal compressible fluid model in Eulerian coordinates have the following deficiencies:

1. They are not related to the corresponding variational principles in Lagrangian coordinates;
2. The variation procedure in these variational problems does not lead to the equations of motion themselves in the Euler form; rather it leads to relations which correspond to definite classes of solutions of the Euler equations. Here allowance for the equations of the constraints imposed by the adiabaticity and continuity conditions limits the region of application of these variational principles to only potential flows;
3. More general results, involving flows other than potential, are achieved by artificial selection of certain additional constraint conditions imposed on the quantities being varied, and in this case additional clarification is required to ascertain whether any inviscid compressible fluid flow is the extremum of the corresponding variational problem.

A new formulation of the Hamilton principle for the inviscid compressible fluid in Eulerian coordinates is suggested which is free from these deficiencies.