Yielding of magnesium: From single crystal to polycrystalline aggregates

Hexagonal close-packed (hcp) metals show a deformation behavior, which is quite different from that of materials with cubic crystalline structure. As a consequence, rolled or extruded products of magnesium and its alloys exhibit a strong anisotropy and an unlike yielding in tension and compression. In this work, the microstructural mechanisms of deformation in pure magnesium are modeled by visco-plastic constitutive equations of crystal plasticity. Single crystals and textured polycrystals are analyzed numerically. By means of virtual mechanical tests of representative volume elements mesoscopic yield surfaces are generated. The linking of micro- and mesoscale provides a procedure for the simulation of the yielding and hardening behavior of arbitrarily textured solids with hcp structure such as extruded bars or rolled plates.