Plastic behavior of circular discs with temperature-dependent properties containing an elastic inclusion

Plastic behaviors, based on the von Mises yield criterion, of circular discs containing a purely elastic, circular inclusion under uniform temperature loading are studied with the finite element analysis. Temperature-dependent mechanical properties are considered for the matrix material only. In addition to analyzing the plane stress and plane strain disc, a 3D thin disc and cylinder are also analyzed to compare the plane problems. We determined the elastic irreversible temperature and global plastic collapse temperature by the finite element calculations for the plane and 3D problem. In addition to the global plastic collapse, for the elastically hard case, the plane stress problem and 3D thin disc may exhibit a local plastic collapse, i.e. significant pile up along the thickness direction, near the inclusion-matrix interface. The pileup cannot be correctly modeled by the plane stress analysis. Furthermore, due to numerical difficulties originated from large deformation, only the lower bound of global plastic collapse temperature of the plane stress problem can be identified. Without considerations of temperature-dependent mechanical properties, the von Mises stress in the matrix would be largely overestimated.