A new yield surface with an evolving effective stress definition is proposed for consistently and efficiently describing anisotropic distortional hardening. Specifically, a new internal state variable is introduced to capture the thermodynamic evolution between different effective stress definitions. The corresponding yield surface and evolution equations of the internal variables are derived from thermodynamic considerations enabling satisfaction of the second law. A closest point projection return mapping algorithm for the proposed model is formulated and implemented for use in finite element analyses. Select constitutive and larger scale boundary value problems are solved to explore the capabilities of the model and examine the impact of distortional hardening on constitutive and structural responses. Importantly, these simulations demonstrate the tractability of the proposed formulation in investigating large-scale problems of interest.
Sintering refers to a manufacturing process through which mechanically pressed bodies of ceramic (and sometimes metal) powders are heated to drive densification thereby removing the inherit porosity of green bodies. As the body densifies through the sintering process, the ensuing material flow leads to macroscopic deformations of the specimen and as such the final configuration differs form the initial. Therefore, as with any manufacturing step, there is substantial interest in understanding and being able to model the sintering process to predict deformation and residual stress. Efforts in this regard have been pursued for face seals, gear wheels, and consumer products like wash-basins. To understand the sintering process, a variety of modeling approaches have been pursued at different scales.
Here, a new method for the solution of the non-linear equations forming the core of constitutive model integration is proposed. Specifically, the trust-region method that has been developed in the numerical optimization community is successfully modified for use in implicit integration of elastic-plastic models. Although attention here is restricted to these rate-independent formulations, the proposed approach holds substantial promise for adoption with models incorporating complex physics, multiple inelastic mechanisms, and/or multiphysics. As a first step, the non-quadratic Hosford yield surface is used as a representative case to investigate computationally challenging constitutive models. The theory and implementation are presented, discussed, and compared to other common integration schemes. Multiple boundary value problems are studied and used to verify the proposed algorithm and demonstrate the capabilities of this approach over more common methodologies. Robustness and speed are then investigated and compared to existing algorithms. Through these efforts, it is shown that the utilization of a trust-region approach leads to superior performance versus a traditional closest-point projection Newton-Raphson method and comparable speed and robustness to a line search augmented scheme.
Here, a new method for the solution of the non-linear equations forming the core of constitutive model integration is proposed. Specifically, the trust-region method that has been developed in the numerical optimization community is successfully modified for use in implicit integration of elastic-plastic models. Although attention here is restricted to these rate-independent formulations, the proposed approach holds substantial promise for adoption with models incorporating complex physics, multiple inelastic mechanisms, and/or multiphysics. As a first step, the non-quadratic Hosford yield surface is used as a representative case to investigate computationally challenging constitutive models. The theory and implementation are presented, discussed, and compared to other common integration schemes. Multiple boundary value problems are studied and used to verify the proposed algorithm and demonstrate the capabilities of this approach over more common methodologies. Robustness and speed are then investigated and compared to existing algorithms. Through these efforts, it is shown that the utilization of a trust-region approach leads to superior performance versus a traditional closest-point projection Newton-Raphson method and comparable speed and robustness to a line search augmented scheme.