Large plastic deformation of voids in crystals

The mechanisms of void growth and coalescence are key contributors to the ductile failure of crystalline materials. At the grain scale, single crystal plastic anisotropy induces large strain localization leading to complex shape evolutions. In this study, an Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) framework for a 2D Eulerian crystal plasticity model combined with dynamic remeshing is used to study the 2D shape evolution of cylindrical voids in single crystals. The large deformation and shape evolution of the voids under two types of loading are considered: (i) radial and (ii) uni-axial loadings. In both cases, the voids undergo complex shape evolutions induced by the interactions between slip bands, lattice rotations and large strain phenomena.

In case (i), the onset of the deformation revealed the formation of a complex fractal network of slip bands around the voids. Then, large deformations unearth an unexpected evolution of the slip bands network associated with significant lattice rotations, leading to a final hexagonal shape for the void. In case (ii), we obtain shear bands with very large accumulated plastic strain ($>200\text{\%}$) compared to the macroscopic engineering strains ($<15\text{\%}$). A high dependence between crystalline orientations, slip band localization and therefore shape evolution was observed, concluding in a high dependency between crystalline orientation and void shape elongation, which is of prime importance regarding coalescence of the voids, and thus to the formation of macro-cracks.