Crystal plasticity modeling of deformation behavior of Al–Al₂Cu eutectics based on high-fidelity representative microstructures

A comprehensive understanding of material deformation behavior holds importance in enhancing the properties of materials, which can be achieved through modeling the relationship between microstructure and deformation behavior by an appropriate crystal plasticity (CP) model. However, before simulations, obtaining a high-fidelity representative microstructure (RM) to simultaneously meet the efficiency and accuracy requirements of the CP model is still a challenge. Thus, taking the Al–Al₂Cu eutectics as an example, we successfully obtained a high-fidelity RM with two-point statistics and some fashionable image processing techniques. Then a high-resolution RMCP model was developed and the deformation behavior of Al–Al₂Cu eutectics at room temperatures was uncovered. Due to multiple activated slip systems on {111}<110> inducing obvious cross-slip behavior, severe and heterogenous plastic deformation occurs in α-Al. And dislocations originate from the microstructure defects. In θ-Al₂Cu, all possible slip systems are not activated, resulting in no plastic deformation. The predictions of the RMCP model are verified to be reliable by comparing with the results of in-situ tensile tests. Our proposed RMCP method is not only applicable to the two-phase eutectic systems, but also suitable for various multiphase and polycrystalline systems.