On the nature of plastic strain localization in solids

Abstract

Theoretical and experimental investigation is performed into the relation between plastic strain localizations of different scale in solids and the respective stress concentrators arising in the surface layer and at internal interfaces. It is found that localized plastic flow of any kind may form and propagate only under strongly nonequilibrium conditions in the zones of normal tensile stress. In the presence of excessive atomic volume, virtual nodes of a structure with higher energy emerge in the space of interstitials and a local structural transformation occurs via collective atom-vacancy configuration excitations. It is concluded that the nature of the plastic flow localization should be described on the basis of representation of strained solid as a multilevel system.