Investigating the limits of polycrystal plasticity modeling

A material model which describes the rate-dependent crystallographic slip of FCC metals has been implemented into a quasistatic, large deformation, nonlinear finite element code developed at Sandia National Laboratories. The resultant microstructure based elastic–plastic deformation model has successfully performed simulations of realistic looking 3-D polycrystalline microstructures generated using a Potts-model approach. These simulations have been as large as 50,000 elements composed of 200 randomly oriented grains. This type of model tracks grain orientation and predicts the evolution of sub-grains on an element by element basis during deformation of a polycrystal. Simulations using this model generate a large body of informative results, but they have shortcomings. This paper attempts to examine detailed results provided by large scale highly resolved polycrystal plasticity modeling through a series of analyses. The analyses are designed to isolate issues such as rate of texture evolution, the effect of mesh refinement and comparison with experimental data. Specific model limitations can be identified with lack of a characteristic length scale and oversimplified grain boundaries within the modeling framework.