The Effect of the Energy Release Rate on the Local Damage Evolution in TRIP Steel Composite Reinforced with Zirconia Particles

In this study, the effect of the energy release rate on the transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) steel composite reinforced with 5 vol% ceramic particles is determined using the crystal plasticity simulation of the coupled brittle-ductile damage model and validated by experimental results. A miniature dog bone tensile sample is subjected to an interrupted in situ quasi-static tensile test up to a true strain of 20.3%. Using the commercial digital image correlation program VEDDAC and the image processing method in MATLAB, the test data are utilized to monitor the progress of local microstrain and damage. The impact of the energy release rate of ceramic particles is investigated by simulation using a coupled crystal plasticity-dislocation density model with ductile–brittle criteria for the corresponding phases. It can be shown that the local deformations predicted by the numerical simulation and the experimental data are qualitatively comparable. The damage pixel of the experiment, smaller Ecr (1.0 × 108), and larger Ecr (1.2 × 108) cases of energy release rates are 4.9%, 4.3%, and 5.1%, respectively. Furthermore, on a global strain of 20.3%, the relative error between simulation and experimental validation of smaller Ecr (1.0 × 108) and larger Ecr (1.2 × 108) cases is 12.2% and 4%, respectively.