Stress-based crystal analysis of yielding in rolled Mg AZ31B

Abstract

A stress-based analysis is demonstrated that can be used to evaluate the effect of material orientation and loading conditions on the micro- and macro-scale yield response of strongly textured metals. This analysis is used to construct microscale yield surfaces for selected deformation mechanisms in rolled AZ31B. Two-dimensional projections of these surfaces are plotted along sample directions to quantify the relative activity of each mechanism for various loading conditions. By assigning each mechanism realistic strengths, the analysis is used to quantify the influence of each deformation mechanism on macroscale yield behaviour. Due to its simplicity, this analysis can be easily carried out to probe and visualize projections of material response in any part of stress space given the material’s texture, its relevant deformation mechanisms and realistic initial strengths of these mechanisms.

Keywords:

• Magnesium
• crystal plasticity
• polycrystal
• micromechanics
• yield surface
• twinning

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Brady Butler from the US Army Research Laboratory and Nick Krywopusk from Johns Hopkins University for performing X-Ray diffraction on rolled AZ31B.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.