A NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE MICROSCALE PLASTIC STRAIN LOCALIZATION IN FRICTION STIR WELD ZONES

A crystal plasticity approach was used to study the effects of grain shape and texture on the deformation behavior of friction stir weld (FSW) microregions. The explicit stress-strain analysis was performed for two representative grain structures with equiaxed and extended grains. Grain orientations were assigned to simulate no texture or a weak or strong cubic texture. Calculations have shown that the texture gave rise to earlier plastic strain localization on a larger scale. The highest stresses were found to develop in a non-textured specimen with equiaxed grains where the grain boundaries served as a barrier to dislocation motion. In both equiaxed and extended grain structures with a strong cubic texture no pronounced strain localization was seen on the grain scale but mesoscale shear bands appeared early in the deformation process. The calculations have shown that the microstructure-based simulation is a reasonable tool to study the deformation behavior of FSW materials, which is difficult to be predicted within macroscopic models alone.