Self-Consistent Crystal Plasticity Modeling of Slip-Twin Interactions in Mg Alloys

Parsing the effect of slip-twin interactions on the strain rate and thermal sensitivities of Magnesium (Mg) alloys has been a challenging endeavor for scientists preoccupied with the mechanical behavior of hexagonal close-packed alloys, especially those with great latent economic potential such as Mg. One of the main barriers is the travail entailed in fitting the various stress–strain behaviors at different temperatures, strain rates, loading directions applied to different starting textures. Taking on this task for two different Mg alloys presenting different textures and as such various levels of slip-twin interactions were modeled using visco-plastic self-consistent (VPSC) code. A recently developed routine that captures dislocation transmutation by twinning interfaces on strain hardening within the twin lamellae was employed. While the strong texture was exemplified by traditional rolled AZ31 Mg alloys, the weak texture was represented by ZEK100 Mg alloy sheets. The transmutation model incorporated within a dislocation density based hardening model showed enhanced flexibility in predicting the complex strain rate and thermal sensitive behavior of Mg textures’ response to various mechanical loading schemes.