Size effects are a key ingredient to control and improve the mechanical behaviour of metallic microstructures and miniaturized components. The analysis of size effects in metals has received continuous attention in the past two decades, both experimentally and numerically. This lecture focuses on the role of grain and phase boundaries in restricting dislocation motion, giving rise to size effects. Some essential features of a thermodynamically consistent model for a grain boundary are presented, which accounts for the grain boundary energy and defect structure and evolution. The role of a phase boundary is investigated with a dislocation transport driven crystal plasticity model, revealing the explicit role of the plastic phase contrast and phase boundary resistance. Interesting size effects are thereby recovered. Size effects can also be eliminated or inhibited by other microstructural mechanisms. Two cases are addressed to illustrate this. The first case reveals the role of dislocation climb and its effectiveness in dissolving dislocation pile-ups. The second case concerns a very thin austenitic film in martensite, whereby the particular structure of the phase and its interface give rise to preferential sliding mechanisms that circumvent the common dislocation driven size effects.This lecture addresses the strengthening role of internal boundaries, constituting a major con- tribution to size effects in metals. It is shown that besides dislocation pile-ups, other mechanisms may be essential. For grain boundaries, the defect absorption and redistribution matters. For phase boundaries, phase contrast in dislocation transport alone already contributes to size effects. Moreover, dislocation-pile ups can be dissolved through climb at higher temperatures or circum- vented by other particular micromechanisms. This analysis effectively illustrates that predicting size effects in metals quantitatively remains a major challenge. References [1] van Beers P.R.M., Kouznetsova V.G., Geers M.G.D.: Defect redistribution within a continuum grain boundary plasticity model. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 83:243-262, 2015.[2] Dogge M.M.W., Peerlings R.H.J., Geers M.G.D.: Interface modeling in continuum dislocation transport. Me- chanics of Materials. 88:30-43, 2015.[3] Geers M.G.D., Cottura M., Appolaire B., Busso E.P., Forest S.,Villani A.: Coupled glide-climb diffusion- enhanced crystal plasticity. J. Mech. Phys. Solids. 70:136-153, 2014.[4] Maresca F., Kouznetsova V.G., Geers M.G.D.: Subgrain lath martensite mechanics: a numerical-experimental analysis. J. Mech. Phys. Solids. 73:69-83, 2014.[5] Maresca F., Kouznetsova V.G., Geers M.G.D.: Deformation behaviour of lath martensite in multi-phase steels. Scripta Materialia 110:74-77, 2016.[6] Maresca F., Kouznetsova V.G., Geers M.G.D.: Predictive modeling of interfacial damage in substructured steels: application to martensitic microstructures. Mod. Sim. Mat. Sc. Engng. 24(2):025006, 2016.[7] Du C., Hoefnagels J.P.M, Vaes R., Geers M.G.D.: Block and sub-block boundary strengthening in lath marten- site, Scripta Materialia,116:117-121, 2016.[8] Du C., Hoefnagels J.P.M, Vaes R., Geers M.G.D.: Plasticity of lath martensite by sliding of substructure boundaries, Scripta Materialia 120:37-40, 2016.
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