Strict convexity of yield surfaces of some weakly-textured materials

Abstract

Let Sym0 be the space of traceless symmetric second-order tensors. We say that a polycrystalline elastic–plastic material is weakly-textured if its yield function f:Sym0→R is the sum of a texture-independent isotropic part fiso and an anisotropic part which is linear in the relevant texture coefficients. Let c>0 and S≔f−1(c)⊂Sym0 be the yield surface of the weakly-textured material in question. We present a sufficient condition (*), namely that ∇2f(S) be positive definite for each S∈S, for a smooth yield surface S to be strictly convex in Sym0. We apply this sufficient condition to weakly-textured materials with yield functions that satisfy the following conditions: (i) the yield functions f and fiso are smooth; (ii) ∇2fiso(S) is positive definite for each S in Siso≔fiso−1(c)⊂Sym0. We prove that the yield surface S⊂Sym0 of such weakly-textured material is strictly convex if the texture coefficients in f are sufficiently small. As illustration for practical applications, by appealing to condition (*) we study the strict convexity of the yield surface pertaining to a weakly-textured orthorhombic aggregate of cubic crystallites which has a quadratic yield function of the type proposed by Hill in 1948. Moreover, we show that all 35 samples of cold-rolled and annealed low-carbon steel sheets studied by Stickels and Mould have their quadratic yield functions and corresponding yield surfaces strictly convex.