The plastic deformation behavior of metal plates has been proved to be affected by loading paths. Plastic flow is a critical component in the mechanical description of plastic deformation, like yield and hardening. In this work, the anisotropic plastic flow of two metal plates (16MnCr5 and S420MC) under non-proportional loading conditions was investigated. Large specimens manufactured along different orientations were pre-tensioned up to various strain levels; subsequently, small uniaxial tensile specimens were cut from the pre-tensioned specimens along different orientations with the interval of 15°, and then loaded to rupture. Meanwhile, the r-value, a measure of anisotropic plastic flow, was recorded. Result shows that for the studied plates which had constant r-value in the monotonic uniaxial tensile tests, a downward evolution of the r-value against plastic strain was observed when the Schmitt angle of two stage loading directions was greater than 90°. As the plastic strain in the subsequent loading stage accumulated, the r-value dropped from a higher level to its original level within a strain range about 6.0%. Based on the transient r-value evolution, a HEXAH-based evolutionary plastic potential model was constructed within the framework of non-associated flow (non-AF) theory. In the model, a local ellipse-shape distortion of the plastic potential surface was defined during plastic deformation process and when the Schmitt angel exceeded 90°, such distortion caused a downward evolution of the r-value in the subsequent deformation. The calibration result indicates that the model could reproduce the transient r-value response relevant to loading path change. The proposed evolutionary plastic potential model can be applied together with different anisotropic hardening models in the non-AF theory to give a detailed description of the plastic deformation behavior and hopefully provide a solution for the accurate simulation of the complex sheet metal forming process.
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