A new concept for continuum distortional plasticity

Abstract

This paper presents hexah, a framework based on the homogeneous anisotropic hardening (HAH) model. It aims at recreating the effects of arbitrary strain path changes over the plastic behavior of metals. Its core relies on the concept of microstructure deviator, a tensor representing one set of active slip systems. The present theory makes use of an arbitrary number of microstructure deviators spawned by abrupt changes of loading paths. A formalism is detailed to describe a smooth evolution from one set of activated slip systems to another. This new approach carries significant advantages: evolution equations are simplified, the number of parameters decreased, and the behavior near cross-loading stabilized.