A constitutive description of the thermo-viscoplastic behavior of body-centered cubic metals

Highlights: ► Established a new physics-based constitutive model for the plasticity of BCC crystals. ► The new model is better than the R–K, Abed, Z–A and J–C models. ► The new model is simpler and easier to use than the original MTS model. ► The material parameters are determined by a global optimization algorithm. ► Provided a precise description of the flow stress of HSLA-65 steel as well as Tantalum. -- Abstract: The Johnson–Cook (J–C) equation, which is obtained from the phenomenological observations of experimental data at relatively low strain rates, cannot well describe the dynamic thermo-mechanical response of many materials at high strain rates, especially under the situations of high or low temperatures. This paper develops a new physics-based model for the constitutive description of BCC metals through a thermal activation analysis of the dislocation motion in the plastic deformation of crystalline materials with the use of the mechanical threshold stress (MTS) as an internal state variable. It was found that the new model can effectively reflect the plastic deformation mechanism of BCC crystals because it directly relates the macroscopic state variables in the constitutive model with the micromechanical characteristics of materials. The material parameters of the model are efficiently determined by an optimization method to guarantee that the material parameters are globally optimal in their theoretically allowed ranges. The application of the model to HSLA-65 steel and Tantalum shows that it is much easier to apply than the MTS model, that its flow stress predictions are better than the Rusinek and Klepaczko (R–K), Abed, Zerilli and Armstrong (Z–A) and J–C models, and that the present model predictions are in good agreement with the experimental data in a broad range of strain rate, temperature and strain.