Micromechanical modeling of ferrite-pearlite steels

In developing micromechanical models, boundary conditions and material behavior of each constituent of the aggregate need to be described correctly. Mapping the major factors which realistically influence the aggregate behavior on the micromechanical model is crucial in the development of micro-models. This is being done blindly, as many crucial factors which influence the aggregate behavior are not considered in the development of micromechanical models for ferrite-pearlite steels. In this work, a procedure for mapping the major influential factors, which influence the material behavior, on the constituents of a micromechanical model is established. This procedure involves the classification of the experimentally observed influential factors which influence the aggregate behavior into influential groups that can be mapped or reflected on the micromechanical model constituents. This achieves the bridging between the experimentally observed influential factors and the approach by which these factors can be captured by the micromechanical model. The single ferrite and pearlite phases are developed experimentally from which the phase behaviors can be produced easily. It is demonstrated that the factors considered in this work significantly affect the micromechanical model responses. It is also shown that the micromechanical model is capable of capturing the general behavior of ferrite-pearlite dual phase steels. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.