Unified constitutive modeling for proportional and nonproportional cyclic plasticity responses

Several features of cyclic plasticity, e.g. cyclic hardening/softening, ratcheting, relaxation, and their dependence on strain range, nonproportionality of loading, time, and temperature determine the stress-strain responses of materials under cyclic loading. Numerous efforts have been made in the past decades to characterize and model these responses. Many of these responses can be simulated reasonably by the existing constitutive models, but the same models would fail in simulating the structural responses, local stress-strain or global deformation. One of the reasons for this deficiency is that the constitutive models are not robust enough to simulate the cyclic plasticity responses when they interact with each other. This deficiency can be understood better or resolved by developing and validating constitutive models against a broad set of experimental responses and two or more of the responses interacting with each other. This dissertation develops a unified constitutive model by studying the cyclic plasticity features in an integrated manner and validating the model by simulating a broad set of proportional and nonproportional cyclic plasticity responses. The study demonstrates the drawbacks of the existing nonlinear kinematic hardening model originally developed by Chaboche and then develop and incorporate novel ideas into the model for improving its cyclic response simulations.;The Chaboche model is modified by incorporating strain-range dependent cyclic hardening/softening through the kinematic hardening rule parameters, in addition to the conventional method of using only the isotropic hardening parameters. The nonproportional loading memory parameters of Tanaka and of Benallal and Marquis are incorporated to study the influence of nonproportionality. The model is assessed by simulating hysteresis loop shape, cyclic hardening-softening, cross-effect, cyclic relaxation, subsequent cyclic softening, and finally a series of ratcheting responses under uniaxial and biaxial loading responses. Next, it is demonstrated that the hysteresis loop shape and width can be improved by incorporation of time dependence (visco-effect) and a novel modeling scheme of backstress shift. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates a methodical and systematic development of a constitutive model for simulating a broad set of low-cycle fatigue responses.