APCOM’07 in conjunction with EPMESC XI, December 3-6, 2007, Kyoto, JAPAN

Elastoplastic Phase-Field Model of Martensitic Transformation
Akinori Yamanaka1*, Tomohiro Takaki2, Yoshihiro Tomita3
1

Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University, 1-1, Rokkodai-chou, Nada-ku, Kobe,
Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan
2
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Matsugasaki, Sakyo-ku,
Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan
2
Graduate School of Engineering, Kobe University, 1-1, Rokkodai-chou, Nada-ku, Kobe, Hyogo,657-8501, Japane-mail: yamanaka@solid.mech.kobe-u.ac.jp, takaki@mech.kit.ac.jp, tomita@mech.kobe-u.ac.jp
Abstract We develop an elastoplastic phase-field model of martensitic transformation that can describe
the relaxation of elastic strain energy induced by both elastic and plastic deformations. In this model, to
consider the plastic deformation during the martensitic transformation, the evolution of plastic strain is
described by the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation, which is derived from shear strain energy.
The effects of the plastic accommodation of transformation strain on the transformation kinetics andmorphology of a martensitic microstructure are investigated using the developed model. Results show thatthe martensite phase grows along a high-stress region and forms a twinned martensitic structure,eliminating a transformation-induced stress field. Furthermore, it is clarified that an increase in elasticstrain energy during the martensitic transformation is largely inhibited by the plastic accommodation. The
prominent release of elastic strain energy arrests the rearrangement of the orientation variants of themartensite phase. Therefore, elastoplastic-martensitic transformation does not produce a single twinned
martensite, which is observed in elastic-martensitic transformation.
Key words: Elastoplastic phase-field model, Martensitic transformation, Plastic deformation, Elasticstrain energy
INTRODUCTION
The microstructure of steel is produced during diffusional or displacive phase transformation [1]. It is wellknown that the martensite phase is formed from the austenite phase by displacive or structural phasetransformation without long-range atomic diffusion, which is called martensitic transformation. Because
the martensite phase exhibits desirable mechanical properties and is used as an important constituent phaseof high-strength steel, the metallurgical, crystallographical and mechanical properties of steel containing amartensitic microstructure have been intensively studied experimentally and theoretically [2-5].
The martensite phase is produced by the shear deformation of the crystal lattice of the parent phase. In
particular, the fcc-bcc martensitic transformation in a ferrous alloy is described using the Bain distortion[6]. Due to this distortion, elastic strain is generated in the material during the martensitic transformation.
Therefore, the morphology of the martensitic microstructure is characterized by the minimization path ofelastic strain energy. In references [7-10], it is suggested that elastic strain energy is reduced by theformation of a heterogeneous array of different orientation variants of the martensite phase(self-accommodation) and by plastic deformation (plastic accommodation). For example, in the case of themartensitic transformation in high-carbon steel, elastic strain energy is reduced mainly by
self-accommodation, and consequently, a twinned martensite is formed. On the other hand, for low-carbon
steel, elastic strain energy is generally minimized by plastic accommodation. In this case, a lath martensite
is formed and dense crystal defects are introduced into the microstructure [11]. Since the morphology ofthese martensitic microstructures is strongly related to the mechanical properties of steel, it is quite

essential for developing a novel steel to predict the formation of martensitic microstructure precisely.
The first theoretical models describing the martensitic transformation and reproducing the formation of amartensitic microstructure were Ginzburg-Landau (GL) models for a twinned martensitic structure [7-9].
These GL models were extended to time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) models for the
self-accommodating twinned martensitic microstructure in shape memory alloys [12,13]. In these TDGL
models, the deviatoric (shear) and dilatation strains are considered as order parameters in Landau theory.
Recently, a phase-field (PF) model has been extensively studied as a powerful tool for predicting
microstructural evolution and has been applied to the martensitic transformation [14-17]. In particular,
Khachaturyan and co-workers have proposed pioneer PF models of the martensitic transformations invarious alloys based on the phase-field microelasticity theory [18-21]. Their PF models consider the
probability of the orientation variants of the martensite phase as an order parameter and are used toevaluate the elastic strain energy of an arbitrary mixture of austenite and martensite phases. However, tothe best of our knowledge, there are no TDGL or PF models of the martensitic transformation that take into
account both self-accommodation and plastic accommodation.
The purpose of this study is to develop an elastoplastic PF model of the fcc-bcc martensitic transformationthat takes into account strain energy relaxation due to both self-accommodation and plastic
accommodation. Then, the two-dimensional evolution of a martensitic microstructure accompanied byelastic and plastic deformations is simulated using the developed PF model. In this paper, we discuss theeffects of plastic deformation during the martensitic transformation on the minimization path of elasticstrain energy and the morphology of the formed martensitic microstructure.
ELASTOPLASTIC PHASE-FIELD MODEL OF MARTENSITIC TRANSFORMATIONThe elastoplastic PF model of the fcc-bcc martensitic transformation is constructed by employing thephase-field microelasticity theory for the evaluation of elastic strain energy [19] and the elastoplastic PF
model suggested by Guo et al. [22].
In this model, the total free energy of the system is defined as the Ginzburg-Landau-type Gibbs free energyfunctional, which is the sum of chemical free energy, g chem , elastic strain energy, g elast , and gradientenergy, g grad .
G = ∫ (g chem + g elast + g grad )dVV(1)

By considering that the chemical free energy is invariant with respect to any rotations and symmetries of
the crystal lattice of the fcc parent phase, it can be formulated using the Landau polynominal expansion as
[21]
2⎫
b
c
⎧a
g chem = ∆f ⎨ (φ12 + φ 22 + φ32 )− (φ13 + φ 23 + φ33 )+ (φ12 + φ 22 + φ32 ) ⎬ ,
3
4
⎭
⎩2

(2)

where φp is the order parameter that describes the probability of the p th orientation variant of themartensite phase and p = 1, 2, 3 indicate three martensitic orientation variants whose tetragonality axes arealong the three <100> directions in the martensite phase. φp changes from φp = 1 in the p th martensite
variant to φp = 0 in the other variants and parent phases. ∆f is the magnitude of driving force for thetransformation, which is equal to the free energy difference between the martensite and parent phases. a, b
and c are the expansion coefficients of the Landau polynomial expansion. In this study, we chose thecoefficients a = 0.15, b = 3a+12 and c = 2a+12 [21, 23]. The gradient energy, which is defined as the sumof gradient energies due to the inhomogenity of order parameters, is given as
g grad =

κ 3

∑ ∇φ
2
p =1

2
p

,

(3)

where κ is the gradient energy coefficient.
The elastic strain energy of the system including an arbitary mixture of martensite and parent phases isderived on the basis of the phase-field microelasticity theory as [18]1g elast = C ijkl (ε ijc − ε ij0 )(ε klc − ε kl0 ) ,2(4)

where Cijkl is the elastic coefficient matrix. To describe the elastoplastic deformation during the martensitic
transformation, the total stress-free strain ε ij0 is defined as the sum of the transformation stress-free strain

ε ij00 (l ) and plastic strain ε ijp as [23]3ε ij0 = ∑ε ij00 (l )φl + ε ijp = ε ij00 (1)φ1 + ε ij00 (2)φ 2 + ε ij00 (3)φ3 + ε ijp .

(5)

l =1

As mentioned above, the three orientation variants can be produced during the fcc-bcc martensitic
transformation. Thus, the transformation stress-free strains of the variants are given by the following threematrices:⎛ε 3⎜
ε (1) = ⎜ 0
⎜0
⎝

0

ε1

00
ij

0

0⎞
⎟
0 ⎟,
ε 1 ⎟⎠⎛ε1⎜
ε (2 ) = ⎜ 0
⎜0
⎝
00
ij

0

ε3
0

0⎞
⎟
0 ⎟,
ε 1 ⎟⎠⎛ε1⎜
ε (3) = ⎜ 0
⎜0
⎝
00
ij

0

ε1
0

0⎞
⎟
0 ⎟.
ε 3 ⎟⎠(6)

Here, the components of these matrices are derived on the basis of the Bain lattice correspondence as [6]2abcc − a fcc
a −a
(7)
ε1 =
,
ε 3 = bcc fcc ,
a fcc
a fcc
where abcc and afcc are the crystal lattice parameters of the martensite and parent phases, respectively. ε ijc is
the total strain, defined as the sum of the homogeneous strain ε ijc and heterogeneous strain δε ijc as(8)
ε ijc = ε ijc + δε ijc .
The homogeneous strain, which is a uniform macroscopic strain and describes the macroscopic shapedeformation of the system, is derived as the spatial average of the total stress-free strain ε ij0 as

ε ijc = ε ij0 = ∫ ε ij0 dV .

(9)V

On the other hand, the heterogeneous strain, which is given by the elastic theory [23, 24], is given as
r
r r v
r
1
0
δε ijc =(10)r Ω ik (n )n j nl σˆ kl k exp ik ⋅ r dk .
(2π )3 ∫krrr
Here, Ω ij (n ) is the Green function tensor, which is an inverse tensor, Ω ij−1 (n ) ≡ C ijkl n j nl . k indicates the
r
r
r r r
reciprocal space vector and n ≡ k k is the unit vector along the k direction. σˆ ij0 k = Cijkl εˆij0 is the Fourier{( )} ()()

transformation of C ijkl ε ij0 . Here, εˆij0 is the Fourier transformation of the total stress-free strain.
The evolution of the martensite phase is described by the following TDGL equation of the order parameter
φp ,
∂φ p
⎛ ∂g
⎞
∂g
δG
= − L′= − L ′⎜⎜ chem + elast − κ 2 ∇ 2φ p ⎟⎟ ,
(11)
∂t
∂
∂
δφ p
φ
φ
p
p
⎝
⎠
where L′ is the kinetic parameter.
To consider the effects of the plastic deformation on the martensitic transformation, the evolution anddistribution of plastic strain should be determined. According to the elastoplasticity theory, the plastic
deformation is related to the shear strain energy described by deviatoric strain [25]. Thus, we assume thatthe evolution of plastic strain can be expressed by the TDGL equation derived from the following shear
strain energy [25]:11
σ ij′ (ε ij′ c − ε ij′ 0 )dV = ∫ 2G (ε ij′ c − ε ij′ 0 )(ε ij′ c − ε ij′ 0 )dV .
(12)
∫
2
2
Here, σ ij′ , ε ij′ c and ε ij′ 0 are the deviatoric components of the Cauchy stress and the total strain and total
g elshear =stress-free strain tensors, respectively. On the basis of shear strain energy, the evolution of plastic strain is
described by the following TDGL equation:∂ε ijpδg elshear(13),= − K ijkl∂t
δε klpwhere Kijkl is the fourth-order kinetic coefficient tensor. In this study, K ijkl is chosen as K ijkl = (KCijkl ) for−1

simplicity [22, 24]. Note that Eqn. (16) is valid only in the plastic region where the Von-Mises equivalentstress σ satisfies the following yield criteria [22, 25]:
1
2
2
2
2
FY ≡ σ 2 − σ y2 = (σ 11 − σ 22 ) + (σ 22 − σ 33 ) + (σ 33 − σ 11 ) + 3(σ 122 + σ 23
+ σ 312 )− σ y2 ≥ 0 .
(14)2Here, σ y is the yield stress of the system.

{}

NUMERICAL MODEL AND INITIAL CONDITION

The evolution of a martensitic microstructure during isothermal fcc-bcc martensitic transformation issimulated in two dimensions. The system is assumed to be an elastic-perfectly plastic material. Governing
equations (Eqns. (11) and (13)) are solved by the finite difference method with periodic boundary
conditions. The size of the computational domain is 0.25 × 0.25 µm2 and the domain is divided into 128 ×
128 meshes. The mesh size is ∆x = 3.9 nm and the plane strain condition is assumed. Because we perform
a two-dimensional simulation, the governing equations for φ1 and φ2 are solved. In this case, we assume
that the total stress-free strain is reduced to,⎛ε1 0 ⎞⎛ε 3 0 ⎞⎟⎟φ 2 + ε ijp⎟⎟φ1 + ⎜⎜. ε ij0 = ⎜⎜(15)
⎝ 0 ε1 ⎠⎝ 0 ε3 ⎠The initial condition in the computational domain is assumed to be the austenite phase and all orderparameters are set to be zero. One circular nucleus of the martensite phase with diameter d 0 = 55 nm,
which is given by random numbers between 0 and 0.1, is located at the center of the computational
domain. The isothermal transformation temperature is set to be constant at T = 300 K. The transformationstress-free strains in Eqn. (15) are given by ε 1 = 0.1112 and ε 2 = -0.1756 [18]. The elastic and shear strainenergies, i.e., Eqns. (4) and (12), are calculated using the following elastic constants: C11 = 242, C22 = 112
and C12 = 84 GPa [6]. The other numerical values and parameters are as follows: the gradient energy
coefficient is κ = 1.0 × 10 -15 J m2 / mol and the kinetic parameters of the TDGL equation for φp and ε ijp
are set to be K = 0.001 and L′ = 1, respectively.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To study the effects of plastic deformation during the martensitic transformation on the kinetics oftransformation and the morphology of the formed martensitic microstructure, we simulate the martensitic
transformation in a linear elastic material whose yield stress is assumed to be σ y = 10000 MPa and in anelastoplastic material with σ y = 800 MPa. Hereafter, we call the former case the elastic-martensitic
transformation and the latter case the elastoplastic-martensitic transformation.
Figures 1 (a) and (b) show the evolutions of the martensitic phase on the (001) plane of the parent phaseduring the elastic- and elastoplastic-martensitic transformations, respectively. Here, yellow, red and blue
regions correspond to the first and second orientation variants of the martensite phase, which are definedas φ1 ≧ 0.6 and φ2 ≧ 0.6, and the austenite phase, respectively. The time unit s’ in Fig. 1 denotes
dimensionless time. In the early stages of the transformations at 40 s’, both results show that thinplate-shaped martensitic phases grow from the initial seed of the martensite phase into the <110>directions. The evolutions of equivalent stress during these transformations are shown in Figs. 2 (a) and(b). A transformation-induced stress field is observed in and around the newly formed martensite phase
due to transformation strain. Furthermore, we observe that the morphology of the simulated martensitic
microstructure is similar to that of the butterfly-type martensite observed experimentally and by finite
element simulation [26, 27]. As the martensitic transformation proceeds, the martensite phase grows along
a transformation-induced high-stress region. It can be seen that a twin-related variant is formed near thevariant formed in the early stages by the autocatalytic effect, as indicated by a white arrow in the figure at
45 s’ in Fig. 1 (a) [28]. The morphology of the growing martensite phase exhibits the twin-related pairstructure of the martensitic variants so as to eliminate the shear strain caused by the transformation.
Figure 3 shows the transformation curves for the elastic- and elastoplastic-martensitic transformations.
The volume fraction of the martensite phase rapidly increases during the transformation. In both cases,
elastic strain energy increases with increasing volume fraction of the martensite phase, as shown in Fig. 4.
As mentioned above, elastic strain energy is reduced by the formation of self-accommodating martensite
variants and by plastic deformation. In the case of the elastic-martensitic transformation, the orientation
variants of the martensite phase formed in the early stages are rearranged so as to eliminate the twinned
domain with a (110) habit plane, as indicated by black arrows in the figure at 60 s’ in Fig. 1 (a). As a result,it can be observed that the final morphology of the martensitic microstructure produced by theelastic-martensitic transformation exhibits a single twinned martensitic structure with a (-110) habit plane.
Because this self-accommodation of the martensitic variants induces the relaxation of internal stress,
elastic strain energy decreases to zero.

(a)(b)
Fig. 1 Evolutions of orientation variants of martensite phase during (a) elastic- and (b)elastoplastic-martensitic transformations(a)(b)
Fig. 2 Distributions of equivalent stress in (a) elastic- and (b) elastoplastic-martensitic transformations.

In the case of the elastoplastic-martensitic transformation, the growth of the martensite phase isaccompanied by plastic deformation. The evolution of a plastically deformed region ( ε ijp > 0) with thegrowth of the martensitic variants is shown in Fig. 5. Plastic strain is generated in both the martensite andaustenite phases to compensate for the transformation strain. In this case, it is revealed that an increase inelastic strain energy in the elastoplastic-martensitic transformation is largely inhibited not only by the
self-accommodation, i.e., the formation of a twinned martensitic structure, but also by the plastic
accommodation. Owing to the marked release of elastic strain energy by the plastic accommodation, therearrangement of twinned martensitic structures with a (-110) habit plane is arrested, as shown in Fig. 1(b). Thus, the martensitic structure formed in the elastoplastic-martensitic transformation includes two
different twinned martensitic structures with (110) and (-110) habit planes. Furthermore, it can be
confirmed that the plastic deformation during the transformation causes residual stress in the
microstructure and that the final value of elastic strain energy does not decrease to zero even long after
isothermal holding.
Finally, it should be noted that our elastoplastic PF model can demonstrate the martensitic transformationaccompanied by the elastic and plastic deformations in an elastic-perfectly plastic material. However, in
real materials, since the evolution of the martensite phase is strongly affected by slip systems, we mayneed to extend our PF model to consider the slip systems and dislocation hardening in future studies.

Fig.3 Variations in volume fractions of martensitic variants during (a) elastic- and (b)elastoplastic-martensitic transformations

Fig.4 Variations in elastic strain energy during (a) elastic- and (b) elastoplastic-martensitic
transformations

Fig. 5 Evolution of plastically deformed region during elastoplastic-martensitic transformation
CONCLUSIONS

An elastoplastic PF model for the martensitic transformation accompanied by the relaxation of elasticstrain energy induced by elastic and plastic deformations was proposed. In this study, we investigated theeffects of plastic deformation during the martensitic transformation on the kinetics of the transformationand the morphology of a martensitic microstructure using the proposed elastoplastic PF model. The results
obtained from this study are as follows:
1. The proposed elastoplastic PF model can describe the evolution of the plastic deformation associatedwith the martensitic transformation by solving the TDGL equations for plastic strain. This model isutilized to predict the morphology of the martensite phase and the distribution of residual stress in the
microstructure after the martensitic transformation.
2. For the elastic-martensitic transformation, the orientation variants of the martensite phase are
self-accommodated to compensate for the transformation-induced stress field and to reduced elasticstrain energy, which increases owing to the martensitic transformation. In this case, the final
morphology of the martensite phase exhibits a single twinned martensitic structure, which results inzero elastic strain energy.
3. In the elastoplastic-martensitic transformation, the increase in elastic strain energy during thetransformation is markedly suppressed by the plastic accommodation. Thus, the self-accommodationof the martensitic variants driven by elastic strain energy is inhibited, and a single variant martensitic
structure is not formed.
4. Due to the plastic deformation during the elastoplastic-martensitic transformation, residual stress is
arised in the microstructure. Because of this effect, elastic strain energy does not decrease to zero evenlong after isothermal transformation.
Acknowledgements The authors greatly acknowledge financial support though by the Japan Society for
the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists.
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