Abstract The prediction of plastic instability in sheet metals during forming processes represents nowadays an ambitious challenge. To reach this goal, a new numerical approach, based on the loss of ellipticity criterion, is proposed in the present contribution. A polycrystalline model is implemented as a user-material subroutine into the ABAQUS/Implicit finite element (FE) code. The polycrystalline constitutive model is assigned to each integration point of the FE mesh. To derive the mechanical behavior of this polycrystalline aggregate from the behavior of its microscopic constituents, the multiscale self-consistent scheme is used. The mechanical behavior of the single crystals is described by a finite strain rate-independent constitutive framework, where the Schmid law is used to model the plastic flow. The condition of loss of ellipticity at the macroscale is used as plastic instability criterion in the FE modeling. This numerical approach, which couples the FE method with the self-consistent scheme, is used to simulate a deep drawing process, and the above criterion is used to predict the formability limit of the studied sheets during this operation.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of the microscopic yield surface (i.e., at the single crystal scale) on the forming limit diagrams (FLDs) of face centred cubic (FCC) materials. To predict these FLDs, the bifurcation approach is used within the framework of rate-independent crystal plasticity theory. For this purpose, two micromechanical models are developed and implemented. The first one uses the classical Schmid law, which results in the formation of vertices (or corners) at the yield surface, while the second is based on regularization of the Schmid law, which induces rounded corners at the yield surface. In both cases, the overall macroscopic behavior is derived from the behavior of the microscopic constituents (the single crystals) by using two different scale-transition schemes: the self-consistent approach and the Taylor model. The simulation results show that the use of the classical Schmid law allows predicting localized necking at realistic strain levels for the whole range of strain paths that span the FLD. However, the application of a regularized Schmid law results in much higher limit strains in the range of negative strain paths. Moreover, rounding the yield surface vertices through regularization of the Schmid law leads to unrealistically high limit strains in the range of positive strain paths.