Adaptive multi-time-domain subcycling for crystal plasticity FE modeling of discrete twin evolution

Crystal plasticity finite element (CPFE) models that accounts for discrete micro-twin nucleation-propagation have been recently developed for studying complex deformation behavior of hexagonal close-packed (HCP) materials (Cheng and Ghosh in Int J Plast 67:148–170, 2015, J Mech Phys Solids 99:512–538, 2016). A major difficulty with conducting high fidelity, image-based CPFE simulations of polycrystalline microstructures with explicit twin formation is the prohibitively high demands on computing time. High strain localization within fast propagating twin bands requires very fine simulation time steps and leads to enormous computational cost. To mitigate this shortcoming and improve the simulation efficiency, this paper proposes a multi-time-domain subcycling algorithm. It is based on adaptive partitioning of the evolving computational domain into twinned and untwinned domains. Based on the local deformation-rate, the algorithm accelerates simulations by adopting different time steps for each sub-domain. The sub-domains are coupled back after coarse time increments using a predictor-corrector algorithm at the interface. The subcycling-augmented CPFEM is validated with a comprehensive set of numerical tests. Significant speed-up is observed with this novel algorithm without any loss of accuracy that is advantageous for predicting twinning in polycrystalline microstructures.