A mesomodel for the numerical simulation of the multiphasic behavior of materials under anisothermal loading (application to two low-carbon steels)

The determination of residual stresses induced by welding or heat treatment operations requires the use of complex models taking into account thermal, metallurgical and mechanical phenomena. In this paper, we propose a mechanical model in which each phase can follow its own constitutive law. This model also takes into account phase transformation plasticity, which is treated independently of the behavior of each phase. This model has been implemented into the French FEM code Castem 2000. The interest of the proposed method is that it allows one to mix any type of nonlinear behavior using Taylor homogenization hypothesis. There is no need to develop a theory to get the equations of the homogenized material law. Two numerical examples demonstrate the efficiency and the flexibility of this approach. The results obtained are compared to experimental values for a typical welding situation and a high-temperature response. This comparison seems to indicate that viscous effects in the materials have a significative influence on the residual stresses produced by welding. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.