Some Model Problems of Polycrystal PLasticity with Deficient Basic Crystals (Q4237233)

The authors analyze whether or not the behaviour of a polycrystal made from a deficient basic crystals is ductile or rigid. The ductile behaviour of polycrystal is dependent on the character of the basic crystal and on the polycrystalline texture, which determine an effective yield set associated with certain slip systems. The authors are looking for geometry-independent bounds on the effective yield set by considering polycrystals made of a basic crystal with a deficient supply of slip systems. Certain model problems involving antiplane shear and plane stress are considered. Under the hypothesis that there are two slip systems, one with yield stress 1 and the other with yield stress \(M\), the authors prove the existence of the textures for which the yield set remains bounded (which corresponds to the ductile behaviour) when \(M\) tends to infinity. It remains an open problem whether some polycrystals may be rigid. The mathematical framework for spatially periodic composites is the theory of nonlinear homogenization for limit loads. The main results of the authors are examples of checkerboard microstructures with explicitly computable effective yield sets, and a new bound on the effective yield set improving the Bishop-Hill-Taylor bound. The proof of the new bound for antiplane shear is based on an application of the compensated compactness method or the translation method. An alternative proof is also given by the linear comparison method for antiplane share, and an analogous bound for plane stress is presented.