A micro/macroscopic analysis for cyclic plasticity of dual-phase materials

In this paper, a methodology is developed to simulate cyclic micro/macroscopic responses of dual-phase materials based on an extension of the self-consistent scheme. This extension is significant because it makes the self-consistent scheme capable of determining overall responses of materials as well as local stress evolution in microstructure. Results show satisfactory agreement between the cyclic responses up to 50 cycles predicted by the present methodology and the experimental data of Bower(1989). The heterogeneous feature of distributions of cyclic stress, strain and energy in microstructure, as well as the essential role of the strong-energy-absorption-capability of the thin layers on the material behavior, and the high strength of the thin-layer microstructure are exploited The possible impact of this work on issues such as ratchetting of the dual-phase material and the ductile and fatigue behavior of its hard phase, as well as the significance on plasticity modeling of constituents and effective homogeneous inclusions are also mentioned.