A study of surface roughening in fcc metals using direct numerical simulation Original Research Article

Grain-scale surface roughening due to plastic straining in polycrystalline aluminum is studied with the aid of a three-dimensional finite-element crystal-plasticity model. An improved understanding of the origin of surface roughening profiles in plastically strained aluminum is sought. Large-scale, Direct Numerical Simulation enables the computation of full-field solutions and the explicit consideration of the deformation of individual crystals as well as of their crystalline texture evolution and interaction with neighboring grains. Simulations are conducted on idealized flat sheet polycrystalline aluminum samples under uniaxial and biaxial loading conditions. The results obtained show that the ensuing surface profiles are controlled by several factors: applied boundary conditions, Taylor factor and shear tendency of the individual grains and the spatial distribution of grain neighborhood orientations. The conditions leading to different ridging profiles, e.g., corrugated and ribbed surface profiles, are discussed.