Evaluation of elastic–viscoplastic self-consistent polycrystal plasticity models for zirconium alloys

Our elastic viscoplastic self-consistent (EVPSC) model is improved by including thermal strain to allow study of the behavior of a Zircaloy-2 slab under moderately large strains. The approach of introducing thermal strain effect is similar to the one developed by Turner et al. (1995) and used by Xu et al. (2008a). Various self-consistent schemes (SCSs) of the EVPSC model are then evaluated in terms of the deformation behavior of the material under different uniaxial strain paths. The material parameters for the various models are determined by fitting experimental data from uniaxial tension and compression tests along the normal direction (ND) and from uniaxial tension tests along the rolling direction (RD). The quality of the various SCS predictions is assessed based on comparisons of macroscopic deformation behavior (stress–strain curves and R-values) and microscopic mechanical response (the evolution of lattice strains and texture coefficients) between the predicted and experimental data. It is revealed that the Affine and Meff = 0.1 self-consistent models give much better performance than the Secant and Tangent models.