Plastic Flow as Spatiotemporal Structure Formation. Part I. Qualitative and Quantitative Patterns

Here we present an extended autowave concept of localized plastic flow in solids, its main definitions, and substantiation. The concept is supported by experiments showing that localization is always inherent to macroscale plastic flow and that its evolution is nothing but a variety of autowave processes. The elastoplastic strain invariant of the autowave theory of plasticity is discussed, and its basic equations are analyzed.