Description of plastic anisotropy in AA6063-T6 using the crystal plasticity finite element method

The crystal plasticity finite element method has been used in combination with crystallographic texture data to predict the plastic anisotropy of the extruded aluminium alloy AA6063 in temper T6. The results are compared with experimental data from tensile tests at different angles between the tensile and extrusion directions. Inverse modelling based on the tensile test in a reference direction is used to identify the parameters of the work-hardening model at slip system level. To investigate the influence of grain interactions, various discretizations of the grains are applied in the representative volume element modelled with finite elements. In addition, alternative homogenization schemes, such as the full-constraint Taylor and viscoplastic self-consistent methods, are used to model the behaviour of the polycrystal. It is found that the grain discretization and the homogenization scheme have only minor influence on the predicted plastic anisotropy. While the crystal plasticity-based methods all give reasonable predictions of the directional variations of flow stresses and plastic strain ratios measured experimentally, there are still significant deviations, indicating there are other sources to the plastic anisotropy than crystallographic texture.