Investigation of Texture Intensity Effect on Deformation Behavior of Extruded Mg-0.8wt%Y Alloy under Tensile and Compressive Loading Using the Crystalline Plasticity Finite Element Method

Magnesium alloys due to their compact hexagonal structure (HCP) usually have a yield asymmetry in tensile and compressive loadings. This is due to various active plastic deformation mechanisms under tensile and compressive loadings. Therefore, it is necessary to study the deformation behavior of magnesium alloys on the grain scale. This study focuses on the 3D Representative Volume Element (RVE) simulations of extruded magnesium alloy to investigate the effect of basal texture intensity on tensile–compressive yield asymmetry of Mg-0.8wt% Y. Polycrystalline aggregate models are built based on the theory of Voronoi diagram; then, the Slip-based crystal plasticity formulation is applied as a User Material Subroutine in ABAQUS (UMAT) to study the relationship of microstructures and stress-strain responses in Mg-0.8wt% Y alloy during tension and compression test and the results are presented. The results show that when the orientation of the grains is considered random (zero texture intensity), the activities of different deformation modes are almost the same and minimum tensile-compressive yield asymmetry happens. Also, the results reveal when all the grains are oriented in a certain direction (texture intensity 1), maximum tensile–compressive yield asymmetry occurs. Indeed, according to the Relative Activity (RA) results, in agreement with Schmid Factor (SF) results, in a strong basal texture with the intensity of 1, maximum contribution of accumulated plastic deformation is related to tensile twinning while in compressive loading, prismatic slip and contraction twinning are responsible for major plastic deformation. Therefore, due to the activation of various deformation modes in strong basal texture, the highest amount of tensile–compressive yield asymmetry occurs. The S-shape strain hardening curve which is the main characteristic of twin-dominated deformation shows a strong dependency on texture in the extruded material so that during loading at the weaker texture, s-shape hardening is no longer present due to the dominated non-basal slips in weaker texture.