Deformation twinning as a displacive transformation: computational aspects of the phase-field model coupled with crystal plasticity

Spatially-resolved modeling of deformation twinning and its interaction with plastic slip is achieved by coupling the phase-field method and crystal plasticity theory. The intricate constitutive relations arising from this coupling render the resulting computational model prone to inefficiencies and lack of robustness. Accordingly, together with the inherent limitations of the phase-field method, these factors may impede the broad applicability of the model. In this paper, our recent phase-field model of coupled twinning and crystal plasticity is the subject of study. We delve into the incremental formulation and computational treatment of the model and run a thorough investigation into its computational performance. We focus specifically on evaluating the efficiency of the finite-element discretization employing various element types, and we examine the impact of mesh density. Since the micromorphic regularization is an important part of the finite-element implementation, the effect of the micromorphic regularization parameter is also studied.