Characteristics of strain gradient plasticity solutions in the absence of microscopic boundary conditions

Abstract To analyze boundary value problems on the basis of higher-order strain gradient plasticity theory, it is mathematically necessary to impose microscopic boundary conditions regarding plastic strain or its gradients. Nonetheless, pseudo-type computational methods for strain gradient plasticity without taking into account microscopic boundary conditions have been frequently employed in the literature. In this work, we show that such pseudo-type approaches provide results consistent with the exact solutions of strain gradient plasticity under very specific conditions.