Plastic spin: Necessity or redundancy?

The plastic spin concept in large deformation anisotropic elastoplasticity theories with tensorial internal variables, is proved to be a necessary constitutive ingredient. Different inaccurate notions about the plastic spin are dispelled, and its presence in the theory is demystified as something very simple and straightforward. To this extent it is necessary to disassociate the plastic spin concept and the conjugate notion of constitutive spin from the foundation of kinematics, which caused confusion in the past, and define it only in relation to the constitutive equations of evolution of the tensorial internal variables. There, the plastic spin is related to the orientation aspect of such constitutive equations, and the multiplicity of the different internal Variables suggests the necessity to have a different spin for each variable. In the process, a straightforward constitutive framework is developed which is based on classical hyperelasticity, yield criteria and invariance requirements of the constitutive functions under superposed rigid body rotation. Ad-hoc assumptions about stress corotational or convected rates and other fuzzy suggestions for different spins are not part of this development. Other topics such as the concept and simplifying effect of the spinless unstressed configuration and its comparison with the isoclinic configuration, some computational aspects, and the effect of small elastic strains are discussed, and all along the significance of plastic spin in the different equations is evaluated. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.