An effective anisotropic visco-plastic model dedicated to high contrast ductile laminated microstructures: Application to lath martensite substructure

In particular types of layer- or lamellar-like microstructures such as pearlite and lath martensite, plastic slip occurs favorably in directions parallel to inter-lamellar boundaries. This may be due to the interplay between morphology and crystallographic orientation or, more generally, due to constraints imposed on the plastic slip due to the lamellar microstructural geometry. This paper proposes a micromechanics based, computationally efficient, scale independent model for particular type of lamellar microstructures containing softer lamellae, which are sufficiently thin to be considered as discrete slip planes embedded in a matrix representing the harder lamellae. Accordingly, the model is constructed as an isotropic visco-plastic model which is enriched with an additional orientation-dependent planar plastic deformation mechanism. This additional mode is activated when the applied load, projected on the direction of the soft films, induces a significant amount of shear stress. Otherwise, the plastic deformation is governed solely by the isotropic part of the model. The response of the proposed model is assessed via a comparison to direct numerical simulations (DNS) of an infinite periodic two-phase laminate. It is shown that the yielding behavior of the model follows the same behavior as the reference model. It is observed that the proposed model is highly anisotropic, and the degree of anisotropy depends on the contrast between the slip resistance (or yield stress) of the planar mode versus that of the isotropic part. The formulation is then applied to model the substructure of lath martensite with inter-layer thin austenite films. It is exploited in a mesoscale simulation of a dual-phase (DP) steel microstructure.The results are compared with those of a standard isotropic model and a full crystal plasticity model.