Simulation of the orientation dependence of stored energy during rolling deformation of low carbon steels

In order to furnish some input data to Monte Carlo codes developed for the simulation of static recrystallization in low carbon steels, two polycrystalline models are used in conjunction with four different hardening laws to estimate numerically the stored energy within individual grains, which is due to the increase in dislocation density during rolling. Three quantities are calculated as a function of final orientation, which are believed to be good estimates of this energy: these are the average dislocation density (linked to the square of an average reference shear stress), the total plastic work and the final plastic work rate. It is thus found that the three selected parameters present the same variation trends for a given model, whatever the hardening law. However, the Taylor and VPSC models lead to opposite conclusions: at the end of the simulated rolling process, the gamma (respectively alpha) orientations are the hardest (respectively softest) with the Taylor model and the softest (respectively hardest) with the VPSC one; thus, the present data cannot be used in the present state to perform recrystallization simulations but may be used to validate the different polycrystalline models, since they are more sensitive to the interaction law than the texture evolution or macroscopic response.