Isotropic hardening in micropolar plasticity (Q1044308)

Thermodynamically consistent isotropic hardening models, which accounts separately for strain and rotation gradients in micropolar plasticity, have been established. Both isotropic and kinematic hardening are present in the theory, with isotropic hardening being captured in a unified manner. The authors discuss isotropic hardening composed of two parts, responsible for strain and gradient effects. The models are able to predict size effects in material behavior more realistically than isotropic hardening laws capturing the influence of strain and rotation gradients in a unified manner. With increasing dimensions of specimens, some irregularities become observable in the predicted responses. At this time it is not clear if this reflects some unfortunate choice of the material parameters or is the effect of the adopted constitutive theory, the effect of the variable chosen to formulate the theory or even the chosen yield function.