Interaction between dislocations and alloying elements and its implication on crystal plasticity of aluminum alloys

It is well known that plastic deformation of single crystals becomes highly non-uniform at relatively small plastic strains, especially in metal alloys. One of the examples is the appearance of coarse slip bands under monotonic uniaxial stressing of a crystal. Triggering of such non-uniform plastic flows has been analyzed in the past mainly in terms of secondary slips and non-Schmid effects in a framework of rate-independent crystal plasticity formulation. Here we focus on the interaction of dislocations and alloying elements in an aluminum alloy and its role in setting the constitutive rules on individual slip systems of the aluminum crystal. A rate-dependent crystal plasticity formulation which accounts for such interactions will be used to analyze the formation of coarse slip bands in aluminum under both single- and multiple-slip conditions.