Plasticity (physics)

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Plastic material" redirects here. For the material used in manufacturing, see Plastic.

Stress–strain curve showing typical yield behavior

for nonferrous alloys (stress, , shown as a function of strain, ):

1. True elastic limit

2. Proportionality limit

3. Elastic limit

4. Offset yield strength

 A stress–strain curve typical of structural steel:

1. Ultimate strength

2. Yield strength (yield point)

3. Rupture

4. Strain hardening region

5. Necking region

A. Apparent stress (F/A0)

B. Actual stress (F/A)

Part of a series on

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In physics and materials science, plasticity (also known as plastic deformation) is the ability
of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation, a non-reversible change of shape in
response to applied forces.[1][2] For example, a solid piece of metal being bent or pounded into a
new shape displays plasticity as permanent changes occur within the material itself. In
engineering, the transition from elastic behavior to plastic behavior is known as yielding.

Plastic deformation is observed in most materials, particularly metals, soils, rocks, concrete,
and foams.[3][4][5][6] However, the physical mechanisms that cause plastic deformation can vary
widely. At a crystalline scale, plasticity in metals is usually a consequence of dislocations. Such
defects are relatively rare in most crystalline materials, but are numerous in some and part of
their crystal structure; in such cases, plastic crystallinity can result. In brittle materials such as
rock, concrete and bone, plasticity is caused predominantly by slip at microcracks. In cellular
materials such as liquid foams or biological tissues, plasticity is mainly a consequence of
bubble or cell rearrangements, notably T1 processes.
For many ductile metals, tensile loading applied to a sample will cause it to behave in an elastic
manner. Each increment of load is accompanied by a proportional increment in extension.
When the load is removed, the piece returns to its original size. However, once the load exceeds
a threshold – the yield strength – the extension increases more rapidly than in the elastic region;
now when the load is removed, some degree of extension will remain.

Elastic deformation, however, is an approximation and its quality depends on the time frame
considered and loading speed. If, as indicated in the graph opposite, the deformation includes
elastic deformation, it is also often referred to as "elasto-plastic deformation" or "elastic-plastic
deformation".

Perfect plasticity is a property of materials to undergo irreversible deformation without any

increase in stresses or loads. Plastic materials that have been hardened by prior deformation,
such as cold forming, may need increasingly higher stresses to deform further. Generally,
plastic deformation is also dependent on the deformation speed, i.e. higher stresses usually
have to be applied to increase the rate of deformation. Such materials are said to deform visco-
plastically.

Contributing properties

[edit]

The plasticity of a material is directly proportional to the ductility and malleability of the
material.

Physical mechanisms

[edit]

Plasticity under a spherical nanoindenter in (111) copper. All

particles in ideal lattice positions are omitted and the color code refers to the von Mises stress
field.

In metals

[edit]

Plasticity in a crystal of pure metal is primarily caused by two modes of deformation in the
crystal lattice: slip and twinning. Slip is a shear deformation which moves the atoms through
many interatomic distances relative to their initial positions. Twinning is the plastic deformation
which takes place along two planes due to a set of forces applied to a given metal piece.
Most metals show more plasticity when hot than when cold. Lead shows sufficient plasticity at
room temperature, while cast iron does not possess sufficient plasticity for any forging
operation even when hot. This property is of importance in forming, shaping and extruding
operations on metals. Most metals are rendered plastic by heating and hence shaped hot.

Slip systems

[edit]

Main article: Slip (materials science) § Slip systems

Crystalline materials contain uniform planes of atoms organized with long-range order. Planes
may slip past each other along their close-packed directions, as is shown on the slip systems
page. The result is a permanent change of shape within the crystal and plastic deformation. The
presence of dislocations increases the likelihood of planes.

Reversible plasticity

[edit]

On the nanoscale the primary plastic deformation in simple face-centered cubic metals is
reversible, as long as there is no material transport in form of cross-slip.[7] Shape-memory
alloys such as Nitinol wire also exhibit a reversible form of plasticity which is more properly
called pseudoelasticity.

Shear banding

[edit]

The presence of other defects within a crystal may entangle dislocations or otherwise prevent
them from gliding. When this happens, plasticity is localized to particular regions in the
material. For crystals, these regions of localized plasticity are called shear bands.

Microplasticity

[edit]

Microplasticity is a local phenomenon in metals. It occurs for stress values where the metal is
globally in the elastic domain while some local areas are in the plastic domain.[8]

Amorphous materials

[edit]

Crazing

[edit]

In amorphous materials, the discussion of "dislocations" is inapplicable, since the entire

material lacks long range order. These materials can still undergo plastic deformation. Since
amorphous materials, like polymers, are not well-ordered, they contain a large amount of free
volume, or wasted space. Pulling these materials in tension opens up these regions and can
give materials a hazy appearance. This haziness is the result of crazing, where fibrils are formed
within the material in regions of high hydrostatic stress. The material may go from an ordered
appearance to a "crazy" pattern of strain and stretch marks.
Cellular materials

[edit]

These materials plastically deform when the bending moment exceeds the fully plastic
moment. This applies to open cell foams where the bending moment is exerted on the cell
walls. The foams can be made of any material with a plastic yield point which includes rigid
polymers and metals. This method of modeling the foam as beams is only valid if the ratio of the
density of the foam to the density of the matter is less than 0.3. This is because beams yield
axially instead of bending. In closed cell foams, the yield strength is increased if the material is
under tension because of the membrane that spans the face of the cells.

Soils and sand

[edit]

Main article: critical state soil mechanics

Soils, particularly clays, display a significant amount of inelasticity under load. The causes of
plasticity in soils can be quite complex and are strongly dependent on the microstructure,
chemical composition, and water content. Plastic behavior in soils is caused primarily by the
rearrangement of clusters of adjacent grains.

Rocks and concrete

[edit]

Main article: rock mass plasticity

Inelastic deformations of rocks and concrete are primarily caused by the formation of
microcracks and sliding motions relative to these cracks. At high temperatures and pressures,
plastic behavior can also be affected by the motion of dislocations in individual grains in the
microstructure.

Time-independent yielding and plastic flow in crystalline materials

[edit]
[9]

Time-independent plastic flow in both single crystals and polycrystals is defined by a

critical/maximum resolved shear stress (τCRSS), initiating dislocation migration along parallel slip
planes of a single slip system, thereby defining the transition from elastic to plastic deformation
behavior in crystalline materials.

Time-independent yielding and plastic flow in single crystals

[edit]

The critical resolved shear stress for single crystals is defined by Schmid’s law τCRSS=σy/m,
where σy is the yield strength of the single crystal and m is the Schmid factor. The Schmid factor
comprises two variables λ and φ, defining the angle between the slip plane direction and the
tensile force applied, and the angle between the slip plane normal and the tensile force applied,
respectively. Notably, because m > 1, σy > τCRSS.

Critical resolved shear stress dependence on temperature, strain rate, and point defects
[edit]

The three characteristic regions of the critical resolved shear

stress as a function of temperature

There are three characteristic regions of the critical resolved shear stress as a function of
temperature. In the low temperature region 1 (T ≤ 0.25Tm), the strain rate must be high to achieve
high τCRSS which is required to initiate dislocation glide and equivalently plastic flow. In region 1,
the critical resolved shear stress has two components: athermal (τa) and thermal (τ*) shear
stresses, arising from the stress required to move dislocations in the presence of other
dislocations, and the resistance of point defect obstacles to dislocation migration, respectively.
At T = T*, the moderate temperature region 2 (0.25Tm < T < 0.7Tm) is defined, where the thermal
shear stress component τ* → 0, representing the elimination of point defect impedance to
dislocation migration. Thus the temperature-independent critical resolved shear stress τCRSS =
τa remains so until region 3 is defined. Notably, in region 2 moderate temperature time-
dependent plastic deformation (creep) mechanisms such as solute-drag should be considered.
Furthermore, in the high temperature region 3 (T ≥ 0.7Tm) έ can be low, contributing to low τCRSS,
however plastic flow will still occur due to thermally activated high temperature time-
dependent plastic deformation mechanisms such as Nabarro–Herring (NH) and Coble
diffusional flow through the lattice and along the single crystal surfaces, respectively, as well as
dislocation climb-glide creep.

Stages of time-independent plastic flow, post yielding

[edit]

The three stages of time-independent plastic deformation of

single crystals

During the easy glide stage 1, the work hardening rate, defined by the change in shear stress
with respect to shear strain (dτ/dγ) is low, representative of a small amount of applied shear
stress necessary to induce a large amount of shear strain. Facile dislocation glide and
corresponding flow is attributed to dislocation migration along parallel slip planes only (i.e. one
slip system). Moderate impedance to dislocation migration along parallel slip planes is
exhibited according to the weak stress field interactions between these dislocations, which
heightens with smaller interplanar spacing. Overall, these migrating dislocations within a single
slip system act as weak obstacles to flow, and a modest rise in stress is observed in comparison
to the yield stress. During the linear hardening stage 2 of flow, the work hardening rate becomes
high as considerable stress is required to overcome the stress field interactions of dislocations
migrating on non-parallel slip planes (i.e. multiple slip systems), acting as strong obstacles to
flow. Much stress is required to drive continual dislocation migration for small strains. The shear
flow stress is directly proportional to the square root of the dislocation density (τflow ~ρ½),
irrespective of the evolution of dislocation configurations, displaying the reliance of hardening
on the number of dislocations present. Regarding this evolution of dislocation configurations, at
small strains the dislocation arrangement is a random 3D array of intersecting lines. Moderate
strains correspond to cellular dislocation structures of heterogeneous dislocation distribution
with large dislocation density at the cell boundaries, and small dislocation density within the
cell interior. At even larger strains the cellular dislocation structure reduces in size until a
minimum size is achieved. Finally, the work hardening rate becomes low again in the
exhaustion/saturation of hardening stage 3 of plastic flow, as small shear stresses produce
large shear strains. Notably, instances when multiple slip systems are oriented favorably with
respect to the applied stress, the τCRSS for these systems may be similar and yielding may occur
according to dislocation migration along multiple slip systems with non-parallel slip planes,
displaying a stage 1 work-hardening rate typically characteristic of stage 2. Lastly, distinction
between time-independent plastic deformation in body-centered cubic transition metals and
face centered cubic metals is summarized below.

Comparison between the time-independent plastic deformation of body centered cubic

transition metals and face centered cubic metals, highlighting the critical resolved shear
stress, work hardening rate, and necking strain during tensile testing.

Body-centered cubic transition metals Face-centered cubic metals

Critical resolved shear stress = high Critical resolved shear stress = low
(relatively) & strongly temperature-dependent (relatively) & weakly temperature-dependent

Work hardening rate = temperature- Work hardening rate = temperature-

independent dependent

Necking strain increases with temperature Necking strain decreases with temperature

Time-independent yielding and plastic flow in polycrystals

[edit]

Plasticity in polycrystals differs substantially from that in single crystals due to the presence of
grain boundary (GB) planar defects, which act as very strong obstacles to plastic flow by
impeding dislocation migration along the entire length of the activated slip plane(s). Hence,
dislocations cannot pass from one grain to another across the grain boundary. The following
sections explore specific GB requirements for extensive plastic deformation of polycrystals
prior to fracture, as well as the influence of microscopic yielding within individual crystallites on
macroscopic yielding of the polycrystal. The critical resolved shear stress for polycrystals is
defined by Schmid’s law as well (τCRSS=σy/ṁ), where σy is the yield strength of the polycrystal
and ṁ is the weighted Schmid factor. The weighted Schmid factor reflects the least favorably
oriented slip system among the most favorably oriented slip systems of the grains constituting
the GB.

Grain boundary constraint in polycrystals

[edit]

The GB constraint for polycrystals can be explained by considering a grain boundary in the xz
plane between two single crystals A and B of identical composition, structure, and slip systems,
but misoriented with respect to each other. To ensure that voids do not form between
individually deforming grains, the GB constraint for the bicrystal is as follows: εxxA = εxxB (the x-
axial strain at the GB must be equivalent for A and B), εzzA = εzzB (the z-axial strain at the GB must
be equivalent for A and B), and εxzA = εxzB (the xz shear strain along the xz-GB plane must be
equivalent for A and B). In addition, this GB constraint requires that five independent slip
systems be activated per crystallite constituting the GB. Notably, because independent slip
systems are defined as slip planes on which dislocation migrations cannot be reproduced by
any combination of dislocation migrations along other slip system’s planes, the number of
geometrical slip systems for a given crystal system - which by definition can be constructed by
slip system combinations - is typically greater than that of independent slip systems.
Significantly, there is a maximum of five independent slip systems for each of the seven crystal
systems, however, not all seven crystal systems acquire this upper limit. In fact, even within a
given crystal system, the composition and Bravais lattice diversifies the number of independent
slip systems (see the table below). In cases for which crystallites of a polycrystal do not obtain
five independent slip systems, the GB condition cannot be met, and thus the time-independent
deformation of individual crystallites results in cracks and voids at the GBs of the polycrystal,
and soon fracture is realized. Hence, for a given composition and structure, a single crystal with
less than five independent slip systems is stronger (exhibiting a greater extent of plasticity) than
its polycrystalline form.

The number of independent slip systems for a given composition (primary material class)
and structure (Bravais lattice).[10][11]

Bravais lattice Primary material class: # Independent slip systems

Face centered cubic Metal: 5, ceramic (covalent): 5, ceramic (ionic): 2

Body centered cubic Metal: 5

Simple cubic Ceramic (ionic): 3

Hexagonal Metal: 2, ceramic (mixed): 2

Implications of the grain boundary constraint in polycrystals

[edit]

Although the two crystallites A and B discussed in the above section have identical slip
systems, they are misoriented with respect to each other, and therefore misoriented with
respect to the applied force. Thus, microscopic yielding within a crystallite interior may occur
according to the rules governing single crystal time-independent yielding. Eventually, the
activated slip planes within the grain interiors will permit dislocation migration to the GB where
many dislocations then pile up as geometrically necessary dislocations. This pile up
corresponds to strain gradients across individual grains as the dislocation density near the GB is
greater than that in the grain interior, imposing a stress on the adjacent grain in contact. When
considering the AB bicrystal as a whole, the most favorably oriented slip system in A will not be
the that in B, and hence τACRSS ≠ τBCRSS. Paramount is the fact that macroscopic yielding of the
bicrystal is prolonged until the higher value of τCRSS between grains A and B is achieved,
according to the GB constraint. Thus, for a given composition and structure, a polycrystal with
five independent slip systems is stronger (greater extent of plasticity) than its single crystalline
form. Correspondingly, the work hardening rate will be higher for the polycrystal than the single
crystal, as more stress is required in the polycrystal to produce strains. Importantly, just as with
single crystal flow stress, τflow ~ρ½, but is also inversely proportional to the square root of
average grain diameter (τflow ~d-½ ). Therefore, the flow stress of a polycrystal, and hence the
polycrystal’s strength, increases with small grain size. The reason for this is that smaller grains
have a relatively smaller number of slip planes to be activated, corresponding to a fewer
number of dislocations migrating to the GBs, and therefore less stress induced on adjacent
grains due to dislocation pile up. In addition, for a given volume of polycrystal, smaller grains
present more strong obstacle grain boundaries. These two factors provide an understanding as
to why the onset of macroscopic flow in fine-grained polycrystals occurs at larger applied
stresses than in coarse-grained polycrystals.

Mathematical descriptions

[edit]

Deformation theory

[edit]

An idealized uniaxial stress-strain curve showing elastic and

plastic deformation regimes for the deformation theory of plasticity

There are several mathematical descriptions of plasticity.[12] One is deformation theory (see
e.g. Hooke's law) where the Cauchy stress tensor (of order d-1 in d dimensions) is a function of
the strain tensor. Although this description is accurate when a small part of matter is subjected
to increasing loading (such as strain loading), this theory cannot account for irreversibility.

Ductile materials can sustain large plastic deformations without fracture. However, even ductile
metals will fracture when the strain becomes large enough—this is as a result of work
hardening of the material, which causes it to become brittle. Heat treatment such
as annealing can restore the ductility of a worked piece, so that shaping can continue.

Flow plasticity theory

[edit]
Main article: Flow plasticity theory

In 1934, Egon Orowan, Michael Polanyi and Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, roughly simultaneously,
realized that the plastic deformation of ductile materials could be explained in terms of the
theory of dislocations. The mathematical theory of plasticity, flow plasticity theory, uses a set of
non-linear, non-integrable equations to describe the set of changes on strain and stress with
respect to a previous state and a small increase of deformation.

Yield criteria

[edit]

Comparison of Tresca criterion to Von Mises criterion

Main article: Yield (engineering)

If the stress exceeds a critical value, as was mentioned above, the material will undergo plastic,
or irreversible, deformation. This critical stress can be tensile or compressive. The Tresca and
the von Mises criteria are commonly used to determine whether a material has yielded.
However, these criteria have proved inadequate for a large range of materials and several other
yield criteria are also in widespread use.

Tresca criterion

[edit]

The Tresca criterion is based on the notion that when a material fails, it does so in shear, which
is a relatively good assumption when considering metals. Given the principal stress state, we
can use Mohr's circle to solve for the maximum shear stresses our material will experience and
conclude that the material will fail if

where σ1 is the maximum normal stress, σ3 is the minimum normal stress, and σ0 is the stress
under which the material fails in uniaxial loading. A yield surface may be constructed, which
provides a visual representation of this concept. Inside of the yield surface, deformation is
elastic. On the surface, deformation is plastic. It is impossible for a material to have stress
states outside its yield surface.

Huber–von Mises criterion

[edit]
 The von Mises yield surfaces in principal stress coordinates
circumscribes a cylinder around the hydrostatic axis. Also shown is Tresca's hexagonal yield
surface.

Main article: Von Mises yield criterion

The Huber–von Mises criterion[13] is based on the Tresca criterion but takes into account the
assumption that hydrostatic stresses do not contribute to material failure. M. T. Huber was the
first who proposed the criterion of shear energy.[14][15] Von Mises solves for an effective
stress under uniaxial loading, subtracting out hydrostatic stresses, and states that all effective
stresses greater than that which causes material failure in uniaxial loading will result in plastic
deformation.

Again, a visual representation of the yield surface may be constructed using the above
equation, which takes the shape of an ellipse. Inside the surface, materials undergo elastic
deformation. Reaching the surface means the material undergoes plastic deformations.

See also