Modelling the behaviour of polycrystalline austenitic steel with twinning-induced plasticity effect

A micromechanical model using the scale transition method in elastoviscoplasticity has been developed to describe the behaviour of those austenitic steels that display a TWIP effect. A physically based constitutive equation at the grain scale is proposed considering two inelastic strain modes: crystallographic slip and twinning. The typical organizations of microtwins observed in electron microscopy are considered, and the twin–slip as well as the twin–twin interactions are accounted for. The parameters for slip are first fitted on the uniaxial tensile response obtained at intermediate temperatures (when twinning is inhibited). Then, the parameters associated with twinning are identified using the stress–strain curve at room temperature. The simulated results in both macro and micro scales are in good agreement with experimentally obtained results.     

On the strain hardening and texture evolution in high manganese steels: Experiments and numerical investigation

We present a systematic investigation on the strain hardening and texture evolution in high manganese steels where twinning induced plasticity (TWIP) plays a significant role for the materials' plastic deformation. Motivated by the stress–strain behavior of typical TWIP steels with compositions of Fe, Mn, and C, we develop a mechanistic model to explain the strain-hardening in crystals where deformation twinning dominates the plastic deformation. The classical single crystal plasticity model accounting for both dislocation slip and deformation twinning are then employed to simulate the plastic deformation in polycrystalline TWIP steels. While only deformation twinning is activated for plasticity, the simulations with samples composed of voronoi grains cannot fully capture the texture evolution of the TWIP steel. By including both twinning deformation and dislocation slip, the model is able to capture both the stress–strain behaviors and the texture evolution in Fe–Mn–C TWIP steel in different boundary-value problems. Further analysis on the strain contributions by both mechanisms suggests that deformation twinning plays the dominant role at the initial stage of plasticity in TWIP steels, and dislocation slip becomes increasingly important at large strains.     

Incorporation of twinning into a crystal plasticity finite element model: Evolution of lattice strains and texture in Zircaloy-2

A crystal plasticity finite element code is developed to model lattice strains and texture evolution of HCP crystals. The code is implemented to model elastic and plastic deformation considering slip and twinning based plastic deformation. The model accounts for twinning reorientation and growth. Twinning, as well as slip, is considered to follow a rate dependent formulation. The results of the simulations are compared to previously published in situ neutron diffraction data. Experimental results of the evolution of the texture and lattice strains under uniaxial tension/compression loading along the rolling, transverse, and normal direction of a piece of rolled Zircaloy-2 are compared with model predictions. The rate dependent formulation introduced is capable of correctly capturing the influence of slip and twinning deformation on lattice strains as well as texture evolution.     

Evaluation of self-consistent polycrystal plasticity models for magnesium alloy AZ31B sheet

Various self-consistent polycrystal plasticity models for hexagonal close packed (HCP) polycrystals are evaluated by studying the deformation behavior of magnesium alloy AZ31B sheet under different uniaxial strain paths. In all employed polycrystal plasticity models both slip and twinning contribute to plastic deformation. The material parameters for the various models are fitted to experimental uniaxial tension and compression along the rolling direction (RD) and then used to predict uniaxial tension and compression along the traverse direction (TD) and uniaxial compression in the normal direction (ND). An assessment of the predictive capability of the polycrystal plasticity models is made based on comparisons of the predicted and experimental stress responses and R values. It is found that, among the models examined, the self-consistent models with grain interaction stiffness halfway between those of the limiting Secant (stiff) and Tangent (compliant) approximations give the best results. Among the available options, the Affine self-consistent scheme results in the best overall performance. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the R values under uniaxial tension and compression within the sheet plane show a strong dependence on imposed strain. This suggests that developing anisotropic yield functions using measured R values must account for the strain dependence.     

镁合金晶体塑性本构模型与非均匀孪生变形分析

微结构演化对镁合金材料力学性能有着显著的影响,为了揭示镁合金宏观塑性各向异性特性与非均匀孪生变形的关系,开展了不同路径下的单轴加载试验以及采用含滑移、孪生机制的晶体塑性本构模型对试验条件下的镁合金变形行为进行数值模拟研究。文中本构模型描述了滑移与孪生变形机制以及晶格转动的机制,同时研究采用三维微结构代表性有限元模型,其包含晶粒尺寸、晶向和晶界倾角等微结构参数。研究结果表明,轧制镁合金具有强烈的宏观塑性各向异性行为,并对这种镁合金塑性各向异性行为的模拟结果以及多晶织构的模拟演化结果与试验测量进行对比,结果都基本吻合。对孪生非均匀变形模拟分析表明,镁合金宏观塑性各向异性行为与滑移、孪生变形机制的不同启动组合紧密相关,同时多晶体内应力的非均匀分布受到孪生变形的严重影响。而不同晶粒尺寸的晶粒所发生的孪生变形有比较大的差异,造成孪晶变体在晶粒内的分布极不均匀。本研究可为通过微结构的合理配置来设计和控制材料的力学性能提供理论依据.     

Continuum modeling of the response of a Mg alloy AZ31 rolled sheet during uniaxial deformation

Lightweight magnesium alloys, such as AZ31, constitute alternative materials of interest for many industrial sectors such as the transport industry. For instance, reducing vehicle weight and thus fuel consumption can actively benefit the global efforts of the current environmental industry policies. To this end, several research groups are focusing their experimental efforts on the development of advanced Mg alloys. However, comparatively little computational work has been oriented towards the simulation of the micromechanisms underlying the deformation of these metals. Among them, the model developed by Staroselsky and Anand [Staroselsky, A., Anand, L., 2003. A constitutive model for HCP materials deforming by slip and twinning: application to magnesium alloy AZ31B. International Journal of Plasticity 19 (10), 1843–1864] successfully captured some of the intrinsic features of deformation in Magnesium alloys. Nevertheless, some deformation micromechanisms, such as cross-hardening between slip and twin systems, have been either simplified or disregarded. In this work, we propose the development of a crystal plasticity continuum model aimed at fully describing the intrinsic deformation mechanisms between slip and twin systems. In order to calibrate and validate the proposed model, an experimental campaign consisting of a set of quasi-static compression tests at room temperature along the rolling and normal directions of a polycrystalline AZ31 rolled sheet, as well as an analysis of the crystallographic texture at different stages of deformation, has been carried out. The model is then exploited by investigating stress and strain fields, texture evolution, and slip and twin activities during deformation. The flexibility of the overall model is ultimately demonstrated by casting light on an experimental controversy on the role of the pyramidal slip 〈c + a〉 versus compression twinning in the late stage of polycrystalline deformation, and a failure criterion related to basal slip activity is proposed.     

Constitutive modeling for anisotropic/asymmetric hardening behavior of magnesium alloy sheets

Magnesium alloy sheets have been extending their field of applications to automotive and electronic industries taking advantage of their excellent light weight property. In addition to well-known lower formability, magnesium alloys have unique mechanical properties which have not been thoroughly studied: high in-plane anisotropy/asymmetry of yield stress and hardening response. The reason of the unusual mechanical behavior of magnesium alloys has been understood by the limited symmetry crystal structure of HCP metals and thus by deformation twinning. In this paper, the phenomenological continuum plasticity models considering the unusual plastic behavior of magnesium alloy sheet were developed for a finite element analysis. A hardening law based on two-surface model was further extended to consider the general stress–strain response of metal sheets including Bauschinger effect, transient behavior and the unusual asymmetry. Three deformation modes observed during the continuous in-plane tension/compression tests were mathematically formulated with simplified relations between the state of deformation and their histories. In terms of the anisotropy and asymmetry of the initial yield stress, the Drucker–Prager’s pressure dependent yield surface was modified to include the anisotropy of magnesium alloy. The numerical formulations and characterization procedures were also presented and finally the correlation of simulation with measurements was performed to validate the proposed theory.     

Micromechanical quantification of elastic,twinning, and slip strain partitioning exhibited by polycrystalline,monoclinic nickel–titanium during large uniaxial deformations measured via in-situ neutron diffraction

We draw upon existing knowledge of twinning and slip mechanics to develop a diffraction analysis model that allows for empirical quantification of individual deformation mechanisms to the macroscopic behaviors of low symmetry and phase transforming crystalline solids. These methods are applied in studying elasticity, accommodation twinning, deformation twinning, and slip through neutron diffraction data of tensile and compressive deformations of monoclinic NiTi to ~18% true strain. A deeper understanding of tension–compression asymmetry in NiTi is gained by connecting crystallographic calculations of polycrystalline twinning strains with in situ diffraction measurements. Our analyses culminate in empirical, micromechanical quantification of individual elastic, accommodation twinning, deformation twinning, and slip contributions to the total macroscopic stress–strain response of a monoclinic material subjected to large deformations. From these results, we find that 20–40% of the total plastic response at high strains is due to deformation twinning and 60–80% due to slip.     

On the evolution of lattice deformation in austenitic stainless steels—The role of work hardening at finite strains

In this work, a three dimensional crystal plasticity-based finite element model is presented to examine the micromechanical behaviour of austenitic stainless steels. The model accounts for realistic polycrystal micromorphology, the kinematics of crystallographic slip, lattice rotation, slip interaction (latent hardening) and geometric distortion at finite deformation. We utilise the model to predict the microscopic lattice strain evolution of austenitic stainless steels during uniaxial tension at ambient temperature with validation through in situ neutron diffraction measurements. Overall, the predicted lattice strains are in very good agreement with those measured in both longitudinal and transverse directions (parallel and perpendicular to the tensile loading axis, respectively). The information provided by the model suggests that the observed nonlinear response in the transverse {200} grain family is associated with a competitive bimodal evolution of strain during inelastic deformation. The results associated with latent hardening effects at the microscale also indicate that in situ neutron diffraction measurements in conjunction with macroscopic uniaxial tensile data may be used to calibrate crystal plasticity models for the prediction of the inelastic material deformation response.     

Integration of self-consistent polycrystal plasticity with dislocation density based hardening laws within an implicit finite element framework: Application to low-symmetry metals

We present an implementation of the viscoplastic self-consistent (VPSC) polycrystalline model in an implicit finite element (FE) framework, which accounts for a dislocation-based hardening law for multiple slip and twinning modes at the micro-scale grain level. The model is applied to simulate the macro-scale mechanical response of a highly anisotropic low-symmetry (orthorhombic) crystal structure. In this approach, a finite element integration point represents a polycrystalline material point and the meso-scale mechanical response is obtained by the mean-field VPSC homogenization scheme. We demonstrate the accuracy of the FE-VPSC model by analyzing the mechanical response and microstructure evolution of α-uranium samples under simple compression/tension and four-point bending tests. Predictions of the FE-VPSC simulations compare favorably with experimental measurements of geometrical changes and microstructure evolution. Specifically, the model captures accurately the tension–compression asymmetry of the material associated with twinning, as well as the rigidity of the material response along the hard-to-deform crystallographic orientations.     

A novel yield function for single crystals based on combined constraints optimization

A novel yield function representing the overall plastic deformation in a single crystal is developed using the concept of optimization. Based on the principle of maximum dissipation during a plastic deformation, the problem of single crystal plasticity is first considered as a constrained optimization problem in which constraints are yield functions for slip systems. To overcome the singularity that usually arises in solving the above problem, a mathematical technique is used to replace the above constrained optimization problem with an equivalent problem which has only one constraint. This single constraint optimization problem, the so-called combined constraints crystal plasticity (CCCP) model, is implemented into a finite element code and the results of modeling the uniaxial tensions of the single crystal copper along different crystallographic directions and also hydroforming of aluminum tubes proved the capability of the proposed CCCP model in accurately predicting the deformation in polycrystalline materials.     

The role of superdislocations for modeling plastic deformation of lamellar TiAl

The deformation behaviour of lamellar TiAl-alloys is investigated by means of micromechanical finite element simulations. For the simulations, a lower and an upper bound periodic unit cell representing the lamellar substructure are used. Crystallographic slip is described by continuum crystal plasticity. For the simulations, 16 individual ordinary, super, and twinning systems divided into three morphological slip modes are taken into account. The strength and hardening parameters of the slip systems are determined by comparison with experimental data from room temperature compression tests of poly-synthetically twinned (PST) crystals of TiAl. The effect of the yield stress of the superdislocations is investigated by systematic parameter variations. The results show that the general anisotropy of PST-crystals can already be described with a purely morphological classification of the slip systems. Superdislocations cause a slight tension–compression anomaly if the yield stresses are higher than for the ordinary and twinning systems.     

In situ neutron diffraction investigation of deformation twinning and pseudoelastic-like behaviour of extruded AZ31 magnesium alloy

In situ neutron diffraction has been used to investigate the deformation twinning and untwinning during cyclic uniaxial straining of hydrostatically extruded AZ31 magnesium alloy. The development of the internal stresses and microstructure in the polycrystalline alloy when twinning takes place is explained on the basis of the two pairs of parent {10.0}_||, {11.0}_|| and twin {00.2}_||, {10.3}_|| grain families. The experimentally observed pseudoelastic-like behaviour in stress–strain cycles is interpreted as being due to the activation of reversal twinning processes during loading–unloading cycles. It is proposed that the driving force for the observed untwinning is the existence of high tensile stresses in favourably oriented grains which result from significant twinning activity prior to unloading from the peak stress.     

Crystal plasticity analysis of texture development in magnesium alloy during extrusion

The texture development mechanism during the extrusion of magnesium alloy is investigated by experimental observation and numerical analysis. First, we perform a finite element analysis of a full extrusion process using a phenomenological constitutive equation, and it is confirmed that the loading condition of the extrusion process near the central axis of the billet is approximated by an equi-biaxial compression mode. Then, the equi-biaxial compression problem is adopted as a simplified boundary value problem to be solved using a crystal plasticity model to clarify the detailed texture development mechanism during the extrusion process. The crystal plasticity analysis of equi-biaxial compression successfully reproduces the texture development from an initial random texture to the final experimentally observed texture. The effects of the deformation modes (i.e. slip and twinning systems) implemented in the calculation and the reference stress ratio of basal to nonbasal slip systems on texture development are studied in detail. Finally, the mechanism of texture development during the extrusion process is discussed in terms of the lattice rotation caused by the activated slip systems.     

On the coupling of plastic slip and deformation-induced twinning in magnesium: A variationally consistent approach based on energy minimization

The present paper is concerned with the analysis of the deformation systems in single crystal magnesium at the micro-scale and with the resulting texture evolution in a polycrystal representing the macroscopic mechanical response. For that purpose, a variationally consistent approach based on energy minimization is proposed. It is suitable for the modeling of crystal plasticity at finite strains including the phase transition associated with deformation-induced twinning. The method relies strongly on the variational structure of crystal plasticity theory, i.e., an incremental minimization principle can be derived which allows to determine the unknown slip rates by computing the stationarity conditions of a (pseudo) potential. Phase transition associated with twinning is modeled in a similar fashion. More precisely, a solid-solid phase transition corresponding to twinning is assumed, if this is energetically favorable. Mathematically speaking, the aforementioned transition can be interpreted as a certain rank-one convexification. Since such a scheme is computationally very expensive and thus, it cannot be applied to the analysis of a polycrystal, a computationally more efficient approximation is elaborated. Within this approximation, the deformation induced by twinning is decomposed into the reorientation of the crystal lattice and simple shear. The latter is assumed to be governed by means of a standard Schmid-type plasticity law (pseudo-dislocation), while the reorientation of the crystal lattice is considered, when the respective plastic shear strain reaches a certain threshold value. The underlying idea is in line with experimental observations, where dislocation slip within the twinned domain is most frequently seen, if the twin laminate reaches a critical volume. The resulting model predicts a stress-strain response in good agreement with that of a rank-one convexification method, while showing the same numerical efficiency as a classical Taylor-type approximation. Consequently, it combines the advantages of both limiting cases. The model is calibrated for single crystal magnesium by means of the channel die test and finally applied to the analysis of texture evolution in a polycrystal. Comparisons of the predicted numerical results to their experimental counterparts show that the novel model is able to capture the characteristic mechanical response of magnesium very well.     

A dislocation-based constitutive law for pure Zr including temperature effects

In this work, a single crystal constitutive law for multiple slip and twinning modes in single phase hcp materials is developed. For each slip mode, a dislocation population is evolved explicitly as a function of temperature and strain rate through thermally-activated recovery and debris formation and the associated hardening includes stage IV. A stress-based hardening law for twin activation accounts for temperature effects through its interaction with slip dislocations. For model validation against macroscopic measurement, this single crystal law is implemented into a visco-plastic-self-consistent (VPSC) polycrystal model which accounts for texture evolution and contains a subgrain micromechanical model for twin reorientation and morphology. Slip and twinning dislocations interact with the twin boundaries through a directional Hall–Petch mechanism. The model is adjusted to predict the plastic anisotropy of clock-rolled pure Zr for three different deformation paths and at four temperatures ranging from 76 K to 450 K (at a quasi-static rate of 10⁻³ 1/s). The model captures the transition from slip-dominated to twinning-dominated deformation as temperature decreases, and identifies microstructural mechanisms, such as twin nucleation and twin–slip interactions, where future characterization is needed.