Two-Scale Modeling of Grain Size and Phase Transformation Effects

A nonlinear homogenization scheme is applied to consider two classes of micromechanical problems, i.e. to estimate the grain size dispersion influence and to model phase transformation effects in steels. The macroscopic material behavior is described purely based on micro-mechanical constitutive models. The coarse graining procedure contains the classical bounds, i.e. mixture theories, as special cases and determines the macroscopic stress and the evolution of the microstructural variables. In the context of the grain size dependent flow behavior of polycrystals, a log-normal distributed grain size is assumed together with a grain size dependent local plastic behavior. The numerical results are well approximated by a simple analytical expression. It is found that grain size dispersion leads to a decrease of the material strength, especially for small mean diameters around one micron. In the context of phase transformation phenomena, the thermo-mechanically strongly coupled Greenwood-Johnson effect is considered. Here, temperature driven phase transformation under external applied stress below the yield stress is modeled that leads to plastic strains. The main result of the present work is, that based on the suggested nonlinear homogenization technique of Hashin-Shtrikman type a numerically effective modeling approach is given, that can be applied at the Gauss point level of structural finite element simulations. In contrast to FE2 schemes, full three-dimensional microstructures can be modeled effectively with standard computers. The simulation results presented in this work are in good agreement with the experimental data.