Porous materials with two populations of voids under internal pressure: I. Instantaneous constitutive relations

This study is devoted to the mechanical behavior of uranium dioxide (UO₂) which is a porous material with two populations of voids of very different size subjected to internal pressure. The smallest voids are intragranular and spherical in shape whereas the largest pores located at the grain boundary are ellipsoidal and randomly oriented. In this first part of the study, attention is focused on the effective properties of these materials with fixed microstructure. In a first step, the poro-elastic properties of these doubly voided materials are studied. Then two rigorous upper bounds are derived for the effective poro-plastic constitutive relations of these materials. The first bound, obtained by generalizing the approach of Gologanu et al. (Gologanu, M., Leblond, J., Devaux, J., 1994. Approximate models for ductile metals containing non-spherical voids-case of axisymmetric oblate ellipsoidal cavities. ASME J. Eng. Mater. Technol. 116, 290–297) to compressible materials, is accurate at high stress-triaxiality. The second one, which derives from the variational method of Ponte Castañeda (Ponte Castañeda, P., 1991. The effective mechanical properties of non-linear isotropic composites. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 39, 45–71), is accurate when the stress triaxiality is low. A N-phase model, inspired by Bilger et al. (Bilger, N., Auslender, F., Bornert, M., Masson, R., 2002. New bounds and estimates for porous media with rigid perfectly plastic matrix. C.R. Mécanique 330, 127–132), is proposed which matches the best of the two bounds at low and high triaxiality. The effect of internal pressures is discussed. In particular it is shown that when the two internal pressures coincide, the effective flow surface of the saturated biporous material is obtained from that of the drained material by a shift along the hydrostatic axis. However, when the two pressures are different, the modifications brought to the effective flow surface in the drained case involve not only a shift along the hydrostatic axis but also a change in shape and size of the surface.     

Ductile fracture by cavity nucleation between larger voids

A mechanism of ductile fracture involving the interaction of relatively large voids with small-scale voids is studied by a computational model. The larger voids are described as circular cylindrical holes arranged in a doubly periodic array in the initial state. In the matrix material between these voids the nucleation and growth of much smaller voids is accounted for by using approximate constitutive equations for a ductile, porous medium. The computations show bands of highly localized straining and void growth, initiating at the surfaces of larger voids and growing into the matrix material, until the bands connect two neighbouring voids. The materials are analysed both under plane strain conditions and under conditions approximating those in a round tensile bar. The failure strains obtained under different principal stress ratios show rather good agreement when plotted against a measure of the stress-triaxiality.     

The mechanical behaviour of ductile materials damaged by two generations of voids

Large strain finite element method is employed to investigate the damaging effect of two generations of voids in ductile materials. An axisymmetric cylinder embedding an initially spherical void is chosen as the model cell. Secondary voids will initiate around the initial void when the local stress/strain in the matrix increases to certain critical conditions. This event is numerically simulated through an empty element technique. The interaction between these two generations of voids has been proved to be favourable to the voiding condition, thus accelerating the material damage, characterized by the value of the overall elastic modulus which may undergo drastic drop when nearing final fracture.     

Finite element simulations of dynamics of multivariant martensitic phase transitions based on Ginzburg–Landau theory

A finite element approach is suggested for the modeling of multivariant stress-induced martensitic phase transitions (PTs) in elastic materials at the nanoscale for the 2-D and 3-D cases, for quasi-static and dynamic formulations. The approach is based on the phase-field theory, which includes the Ginzburg–Landau equations with an advanced thermodynamic potential that captures the main features of macroscopic stress–strain curves. The model consists of a coupled system of the Ginzburg–Landau equations and the static or dynamic elasticity equations, and it describes evolution of distributions of austenite and different martensitic variants in terms of corresponding order parameters. The suggested explicit finite element algorithm allows decoupling of the Ginzburg–Landau and elasticity equations for small time increments. Based on the developed phase-field approach, the simulation of the microstructure evolution for cubic-tetragonal martensitic PT in a NiAl alloy is presented for quasi-statics (i.e., without inertial forces) and dynamic formulations in the 2-D and 3-D cases. The numerical results show the significant influence of inertial effects on microstructure evolution in single- and polycrystalline samples, even for the traditional problem of relaxation of initial perturbations to stationary microstructure.     

Design of microstructure-sensitive properties in elasto-viscoplastic polycrystals using multi-scale homogenization

Evolution of properties during processing of materials depends on the underlying material microstructure. A finite element homogenization approach is presented for calculating the evolution of macro-scale properties during processing of microstructures. A mathematically rigorous sensitivity analysis of homogenization is presented that is used to identify optimal forging rates in processes that would lead to a desired microstructure response. Macro-scale parameters such as forging rates are linked with microstructure deformation using boundary conditions drawn from the theory of multi-scale homogenization. Homogenized stresses at the macro-scale are obtained through volume-averaging laws. A constitutive framework for thermo-elastic–viscoplastic response of single crystals is utilized along with a fully-implicit Lagrangian finite element algorithm for modelling microstructure evolution. The continuum sensitivity method (CSM) used for designing processes involves differentiation of the governing field equations of homogenization with respect to the processing parameters and development of the weak forms for the corresponding sensitivity equations that are solved using finite element analysis. The sensitivity of the deformation field within the microstructure is exactly defined and an averaging principle is developed to compute the sensitivity of homogenized stresses at the macro-scale due to perturbations in the process parameters. Computed sensitivities are used within a gradient-based optimization framework for controlling the response of the microstructure. Development of texture and stress–strain response in 2D and 3D FCC aluminum polycrystalline aggregates using the homogenization algorithm is compared with both Taylor-based simulations and published experimental results. Processing parameters that would lead to a desired equivalent stress–strain curve in a sample poly-crystalline microstructure are identified for single and two-stage loading using the design algorithm.     

Size effects on void growth in single crystals with distributed voids

The effect of void size on void growth in single crystals with uniformly distributed cylindrical voids is studied numerically using a finite deformation strain gradient crystal plasticity theory with an intrinsic length parameter. A plane strain cell model is analyzed for a single crystal with three in-plane slip systems. It is observed that small voids allow much larger overall stress levels than larger voids for all the stress triaxialities considered. The amount of void growth is found to be suppressed for smaller voids at low stress triaxialities. Significant differences are observed in the distribution of slips and on the shape of the deformed voids for different void sizes. Furthermore, the orientation of the crystalline lattice is found to have a pronounced effect on the results, especially for the smaller void sizes.     

Effect of stress-state and spacing on voids in a shear-field

Unit cell model analyses are carried out for a material with a periodic array of voids, subject to shear loading. Thus the focus is on ductile fracture in conditions of low stress triaxiality. It has been shown recently that voids in shear are flattened out to micro-cracks, which rotate and elongate until interaction with neighboring micro-cracks gives coalescence, so that the failure mechanism is very different from that under tensile loading. In the present studies the plane strain unit cell has fully periodic boundary conditions, so that any combination of the stress components in the overall average stress state can be prescribed. This also allows for studies of the effect of different initial void spacing in the two in-plane coordinate directions. The stress states considered are essentially simple shear, with various levels of tensile stresses or compressive stresses superposed, i.e. low positive stress triaxiality or even negative stress triaxiality. For high aspect ratio unit cells a clear localization band is found inside the cell, which actually represents several parallel bands, due to periodicity. In the materials represented by a low aspect ratio unit cell localization would also occur after that the maximum shear stress has been passed, but this is not shown when periodicity is enforced. The effect of superposed tensile or compressive stresses is found to be bigger for high aspect ratio unit cells than for low aspect ratios.     

The effects of thermal softening and heat conduction on the dynamic growth of voids

This paper seeks to examine the dynamic growth of a single void in an elastic–plastic medium through analytical and numerical approaches. Particular attention is paid to the instability of void growth, and to the effects of inertia, thermal softening and heat conduction. A critical stress is known to exist for the unstable growth of voids. The dependence of this critical stress on material properties is examined, and this critical stress is demonstrated to correspond to the lower limit for the ductile spall strength in many materials. The effects of heat conduction on the dynamic growth of voids strongly depend on the time and length scales in the early stages of the dynamic void growth.     

A selfconsistent formulation for the prediction of the anisotropic behavior of viscoplastic polycrystals with voids

In this work we consider the presence of ellipsoidal voids inside polycrystals subjected to large strain deformation. For this purpose, the originally incompressible viscoplastic selfconsistent (VPSC) formulation of Lebensohn and Tomé (Acta Metall. Mater. 41 (1993) 2611) has been extended to deal with compressible polycrystals. In doing this, both the deviatoric and the spherical components of strain-rate and stress are accounted for. Such an extended model allows us to account for the void and for porosity evolution, while preserving the anisotropy and crystallographic capabilities of the VPSC model. The formulation can be adjusted to match the Gurson model, in the limit of rate-independent isotropic media and spherical voids. We present several applications of this extended VPSC model, which address the coupling between texture, plastic anisotropy, void shape, triaxiality, and porosity evolution.     

Stress–strain curve and stored energy during uniaxial deformation of polycrystals

The subject of this paper is an attempt to obtain information about the energy stored during plastic deformation from experimentally measured stress–strain curve.Theoretical analysis of the stress–strain curve for elastic-perfectly plastic polycrystalline material has shown that only the part of stored energy can be calculated from the stress–strain curve. This part is the energy stored during non-homogeneous plastic deformation.The results of such calculation have been compared with the total stored energy determined experimentally. It has been shown that part of total stored energy related to non-homogeneous plastic deformation of investigated materials is much lower than that corresponding to homogeneous one.     

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.     

Microscale prediction of deformation in an austenitic stainless steel under uniaxial loading

In this study, the deformation behaviour of polycrystalline austenitic 316H stainless steel under uniaxial loading is investigated by means of in-situ neutron diffraction (ND) measurement and crystal plasticity-based finite element (FE) modelling. Data have been obtained for the macroscopic stress–strain response and the lattice strain evolution in the longitudinal and transverse direction relative to the uniaxial loading axis. Comparison between the model predictions and the ND measurements suggests that in most cases the FE model can predict the lattice strain evolution at the microscale and capture the general trends observed in the experiments. Both ND measurements and FE modelling simulations identify little effect of micromorphology effect on the longitudinal lattice strain evolution, while the transverse lattice strain response appears to be sensitive to the microstructure, in particular the initial crystallographic orientation of the material.     

On the theory of elastic shells made from a material with voids

In this paper we present a theory for porous elastic shells using the model of Cosserat surfaces. We employ the Nunziato–Cowin theory of elastic materials with voids and introduce two scalar fields to describe the porosity of the shell: one field characterizes the volume fraction variations along the middle surface, while the other accounts for the changes in volume fraction along the shell thickness. Starting from the basic principles, we first deduce the equations of the nonlinear theory of Cosserat shells with voids. Then, in the context of the linear theory, we prove the uniqueness of solution for the boundary initial value problem. In the case of an isotropic and homogeneous material, we determine the constitutive coefficients for Cosserat shells, by comparison with the results derived from the three-dimensional theory of elastic media with voids. To this aim, we solve two elastostatic problems concerning rectangular plates with voids: the pure bending problem and the extensional deformation under hydrostatic pressure.     

Dislocation-mediated strain hardening in tungsten: Thermo-mechanical plasticity theory and experimental validation

A self-consistent thermo-mechanical model to study the strain-hardening behavior of polycrystalline tungsten was developed and validated by a dedicated experimental route. Dislocation–dislocation multiplication and storage, as well dislocation-grain boundary (GB) pinning were the major mechanisms underlying the evolution of plastic deformation, thus providing a link between the strain hardening behavior and material's microstructure. The microstructure of the polycrystalline tungsten samples has been thoroughly investigated by scanning and electron microscopy. The model was applied to compute stress–strain loading curves of commercial tungsten grades, in the as-received and as-annealed states, in the temperature range of 500–1000 °C. Fitting the model to the independent experimental results obtained using a single crystal and as-received polycrystalline tungsten, the model demonstrated its capability to predict the deformation behavior of as-annealed samples in a wide temperature range and applied strain. The relevance of the dislocation-mediated plasticity mechanisms used in the model have been validated using transmission electron microscopy examination of the samples deformed up to different amounts of strain. On the basis of the experimental validation, the limitations of the model are determined and discussed.     

The coupled effects of plastic strain gradient and thermal softening on the dynamic growth of voids

This paper examines the combined effects of temperature, strain gradient and inertia on the growth of voids in ductile fracture. A dislocation-based gradient plasticity theory [J. Mech. Phys. Solids 47 (1999) 1239, J. Mech. Phys. Solids 48 (2000) 99] is applied, and temperature effects are incorporated. Since a strong size-dependence is introduced into the dynamic growth of voids through gradient plasticity, a cut-off size is then set by the stress level of the applied loading. Only those voids that are initially larger than the cut-off size can grow rapidly. At the early stages of void growth, the effects of strain gradients greatly increase the stress level. Therefore, thermal softening has a strong effect in lowering the threshold stress for the unstable growth of voids. Once the voids start rapid growth, however, the influence of strain gradients will decrease, and the rate of dynamic void growth predicted by strain gradient plasticity approaches that predicted by classical plasticity theories.     

Cylindrical void in a rigid-ideally plastic single crystal. Part I: Anisotropic slip line theory solution for face-centered cubic crystals

The fracture toughness of ductile materials depends upon the ability of the material to resist the growth of microscale voids near a crack tip. Mechanics analyses of the elastic–plastic deformation state around such voids typically assume the surrounding material to be isotropic. However, the voids exist predominantly within a single grain of a polycrystalline material, so it is necessary to account for the anisotropic nature of the surrounding material. In the present work, anisotropic slip line theory is employed to derive the stress and deformation state around a cylindrical void in a single crystal oriented so that plane strain conditions are admitted from three effective in-plane slip systems. The deformation state takes the form of angular sectors around the circumference of the void. Only one of the three effective slip systems is active within each sector. Each slip sector is further subdivided into smaller sectors inside of which it is possible to derive the stress state. Thus the theory predicts a highly heterogeneous stress and deformation state. In addition, it is shown that the in-plane pressure necessary to activate plastic deformation around a cylindrical void in an anisotropic material is significantly higher than that necessary for an isotropic material. Experiments and single crystal plasticity finite element simulations of cylindrical voids in single crystals, both of which exhibit a close correspondence to the analytical theory, are discussed in a companion paper.     

A constitutive model for elastoplastic solids containing primary and secondary voids

In many ductile metallic alloys, the damage process controlled by the growth and coalescence of primary voids nucleated on particles with a size varying typically between 1 and 100 μm, is affected by the growth of much smaller secondary voids nucleated on inclusions with a size varying typically between 0.1 and 3 μm. The goal of this work is first to quantify the potential effect of the growth of these secondary voids on the coalescence of primary voids using finite element (FE) unit cell calculations and second to formulate a new constitutive model incorporating this effect. The nucleation and growth of secondary voids do essentially not affect the growth of the primary voids but mainly accelerate the void coalescence process. The drop of the ductility caused by the presence of secondary voids increases if the nucleation strain decreases and/or if their volume fraction increases and/or if the primary voids are flat. A strong coupling is indeed observed between the shape of the primary voids and the growth of the second population enhancing the anisotropy of the ductility induced by void shape effects. The new micromechanics-based coalescence condition for internal necking introduces the softening induced by secondary voids growing in the ligament between two primary voids. The FE cell calculations were used to guide and assess the development of this model. The use of the coalescence condition relies on a closed-form model for estimating the evolution of the secondary voids in the vicinity of a primary cavity. This coalescence criterion is connected to an extended Gurson model for the first population including the effect of the void aspect ratio. With respect to classical models for single void population, this new constitutive model improves the predictive potential of damage constitutive models devoted to ductile metal while requiring only two new parameters, i.e. the initial porosity of second population and a void nucleation stress, without any additional adjustment.     

Stability and shape evolution of voids and channels due to surface misfit

This paper investigates the stability and shape evolution of voids and channels under the combined effects of surface misfit, surface energy and surface diffusion. A dynamic model that incorporates the competition among these energetic forces is developed. Our approach integrates a novel local semi-implicit level set method to capture interface movement and an iterative spectral method to calculate the elastic field, which allows simulating very large shape evolution such as void breakup or coalescence in a wide range of materials systems. Our study reveals the important effect of surface misfit and remarkably rich dynamics during shape evolution. It is shown that surface misfit can lead to instabilities of voids, break-up of channels and ordering of voids.     

On stress analysis for a penny-shaped crack interacting with inclusions and voids

An analytical approach to calculate the stress of an arbitrary located penny-shaped crack interacting with inclusions and voids is presented. First, the interaction between a penny-shaped crack and two spherical inclusions is analyzed by considering the three-dimensional problem of an infinite solid, composed of an elastic matrix, a penny-shaped crack and two spherical inclusions, under tension. Based on Eshelby’s equivalent inclusion method, superposition theory of elasticity and an approximation according to the Saint–Venant principle, the interaction between the crack and the inclusions is systematically analyzed. The stress intensity factor for the crack is evaluated to investigate the effect of the existence of inclusions and the crack–inclusions interaction on the crack propagation. To validate the current framework, the present predictions are compared with a noninteracting solution, an interacting solution for one spherical inclusion, and other theoretical approximations. Finally, the proposed analytical approach is extended to study the interaction of a crack with two voids and the interaction of a crack with an inclusion and a void.