Multi-grain finite element model for studying the wire drawing process

Wire drawing of tungsten wires leads to a special microstructure which is characterized by elongated curled grains and a sharp I 10) texture. At this moment the computational power does not allow to simulate this deformation process by taking into account the whole grain structure. Therefore a cubic unit cell that takes into consideration the grain structure of the wire was selected and modelled in detail to study the features in a qualitative way. Individual grains of the unit cell are described within the framework of continuum crystal plasticity. The boundary conditions are idealised wire drawing conditions. Simulations were performed to study the evolution of the texture and the curling effect. They show that the presented model along with the constitutive theory of crystal plasticity is able to predict texture development, grain elongation and the curling of grains with an initially sharp 110 texture. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.