Abstract
Crystal plasticity simulations help to understand the local deformation behavior of multi-phase materials based on the microstructural attributes. The results of such simulations are mainly dependent on the Representative Volume Element (RVE) size and composition. The effect of RVE thickness on the changing global and local stress and strain is analyzed in this work for a test case of dual-phase steels in order to identify the minimal RVE thickness for obtaining consistent results. 100×100×100 voxel representative volume elements are constructed by varying grain size and random orientation distribution in DREAM-3D. The constructed RVEs are sliced in depth up to 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, and 50 layers to construct different geometries with increasing thickness. Crystal plasticity model parameters for ferrite and martensite are taken from already published data and assigned to respective phases. Although the global stress/strain behavior of different RVEs is similar (<5% divergence), the local stress/strain partitioning in RVEs with varying thickness and grain size shows a considerable variation when statistically compared. It is concluded that two-dimensional (2D) RVEs can be used for crystal plasticity simulations when global deformation behavior is of interest. Whereas, it is necessary to consider three-dimensional (3D) RVEs, which have a specific thickness and number of grains for determining stabilized and more accurate local deformation behavior. This estimation will help researchers in optimizing the computation time for accurate mesoscale simulations.
Highlights
The micro-structure of a material plays an important role in defining the mechanical properties [1]and service life of a component [2,3]
Crystals 2020, 10, 944 and orientation distribution data [17]. They can be constructed by processing EBSD map of a material appropriately [18], and 3D Representative Volume Element (RVE) can be constructed by multi-layer EBSD mapping of a local region while using Focused Ion Beam (FIB) milling [19]
In recent studies [19,23], it was shown that 3D RVEs—compared with 2D RVEs—yield nearly accurate local stress–strain evolution results, yet the effect of RVE thickness on results was not analyzed in these studies
Summary
The micro-structure of a material plays an important role in defining the mechanical properties [1]and service life of a component [2,3]. A lot of work in the recent past has been carried out to estimate the local deformation behavior of single and multi-phase materials based on two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) RVEs [11,12,13,14]. It is important to know the effective RVE thickness relative to the material, average grain size, and develop a simulation model . Such estimation leads to reduced computational cost while maintaining the accuracy of the results. Researchers analyzed the effects of RVE size and applied boundary conditions on the deformation behavior of heterogeneous materials [4,25,26]. Scale-dependent elastic and elastoplastic deformation behaviors of periodic [27] and random [28] composites were analyzed
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