3D strain heterogeneity and fracture studied by X-ray tomography and crystal plasticity in an aluminium alloy

• Novel strong correlation found between measured internal strain and CP-FE prediction • New miniaturized plane strain tensile specimen tested in situ with 3D lab tomography • DIC in the specimen bulk revealing slanted strained bands matching final crack path • Initial 3D grain structure obtained by diffraction contrast tomography and meshing • CP-FE simulation at high strain on DCT data reproducing measured strain fields Strong correlations between measured strain fields and crystal plasticity finite element (CP-FE) predictions based on the real microstructure are found for a plane strain tensile specimen made of 6016 T4 aluminium alloy. This is achieved using multimodal X-ray lab tomography giving access to both the initial grain structure and the strain evolution. The real microstructure of the central region of interest (ROI) of the undeformed specimen is obtained non destructively using lab-based diffraction contrast tomography (DCT) and meshing. An in situ tensile test, using absorption contrast tomography (ACT) is then performed for twelve loading increments up to fracture. Taking advantage of the plane strain condition, the evolution of the internal strain field is measured by two-dimensional digital image correlation (DIC) in the material bulk using the natural speckle provided by intermetallic particles. Early strain heterogeneities in the form of slanted bands, that are spatially stable over time, are revealed and the fracture path – determined from the post mortem scan – is found to coincide with the bands exhibiting maximum strain. CP-FE simulations are performed on the meshed microstructure of the specimen acquired by DCT and are compared with image correlation measurements. The measured strain fields are well described by 3D CP-FE predictions, whilst it is shown that neither a macroscopic anisotropic plasticity model nor a CP-FE simulation with random grain orientations could reproduce the measurements.