Mesoscale cyclic crystal plasticity with dislocation substructures

Abstract Constitutive formulations have increasingly focused on physically-based approaches that are less phenomenological and incorporate information from multiple scales. Most dislocation-based plasticity approaches reflect many-body dislocation physics without considering the length scales introduced by the self-organization of dislocations into mesoscale structures. These structures promote internal stresses or back stresses that are heterogeneous and long-range in nature and play a critical intermediary role in distinguishing the stress at micro- and nano-scales under cyclic loading. We present a framework that explicitly incorporates length-scales and evolution laws associated with mesoscale dislocation substructures such as cells and persistent slip bands (PSBs) in metallic materials under cyclic loading. A physically-based formulation for the back stress based on the Eshelby inclusion formalism is introduced that explicitly depends on morphology of mesoscale dislocation structures. The approach employs material parameters that can be measured or computed at lower length scales to contrast the response of models and experiments for multiple single crystals orientation and polycrystals for a wide range of strains.