Thermomechanical coupling and DNLR formalism. Study of steel behavior under mechanical cyclic loadings

The deformation of material inevitably generates a production of internal energy that has to be correctly predicted. The object of this paper is to show how the thermodynamic formalism called distribution of non-linear relaxations (DNLR) enables one to describe the thermomechanical behavior of a specimen subjected to complex mechanical loadings. sis of the DNLR model are first introduced, followed by a comparative study between the DNLR simulations and the experimental data obtained on a type of steel (S355) under cyclic mechanical loadings. A last study is then devoted to determination of the (visco)plastic yield stress through thermal measurements.