Resetting scheme for plastic strain surface in constitutive modeling of cyclic plasticity

Abstract

A resetting scheme is proposed for correctly evaluating the plastic strain range to analyze structural components subjected to regular cyclic loading following pre-loading. In this scheme, a plastic strain surface, referred to as the plastic-strain-range surface in the present paper, is reset to a point and re-evolves every cycle, with its size at the end of the last cycle considered to be the plastic strain range of the current cycle. This resetting scheme provides a definite value for the evolution parameter of the plastic-strain-range surface irrespective of the amounts of cyclic hardening, pre-straining, and ratcheting. The resetting scheme is implemented in a cyclic viscoplastic model in finite element methods, and is applied to analyze a notched bar subjected to cyclic loading at its ends. Furthermore, the validity of the resetting scheme for non-proportional cyclic loading is examined by analyzing the cyclic behavior along elliptic and rhombic strain paths. It is shown that the resetting scheme allows the use of a definite value for the evolution parameter of the plastic-strain-range surface in the presence of any cyclic hardening and/or ratcheting. Moreover, it is shown that the resetting scheme can be valid for cyclic loading with a certain degree of non-proportionality.