A strong discontinuity approach to crystal plasticity theory

In this work, a novel, displacement‐driven approach to crystal plasticity based on embedded strong discontinuities (ESDA) is presented, cf. [1, 2]. In contrast to the classical strain‐driven approach, which connects the Schmid stress to the slip strain at a certain slip system, the novel approach applies a traction‐separation law to connect the Schmid stresses to the slip displacements. Surprisingly, both models show similar mathematical structures, which allows to develop a unifying algorithmic formulation. The elaborated algorithmic formulation is fully implicit and the inequalities characterizing rate‐independent crystal plasticity theory are solved efficiently by means of so‐called Fischer‐Burmeister NCP functions, cf. [3]. The resulting solution scheme is extremely robust – even for an arbitrary number of simultaneously active slip systems.