SUMMARY

Finite element simulation of metal cutting processes offers a cost-effective method to optimize the cutting conditions and to select the right tool material and geometry. A key input to such simulations is a constitutive model that describes material behavior during severe plastic deformation. However, the vast majority of material models used in prior work are phenomenological in nature and are usually obtained by fitting a non-physically based mathematical equation to the macro-scale stress-strain response of the material. Moreover, the deformation range covered by the stress-strain response used in the model calibration process usually falls short of the ranges typically observed in metal cutting. This thesis seeks to develop a unified material model that explicitly incorporates microstructure evolution into the constitutive law to describe the macro-scale plastic deformation response of the material valid over the range of strains, strain rates and temperatures experienced in machining. The proposed unified model is based on the underlying physics of interactions of mobile dislocations with different short and long range barriers and accounts for various physical mechanisms such as dynamic recovery and dynamic recrystallization. In addition, the inclusion of microstructure evolution into the constitutive model enables the prediction of microstructure in the chip and the machined surface. In this study, the unified material model is calibrated and validated in the severe plastic deformation regime characteristic of metal machining and is then implemented in finite element simulations to evaluate its ability to predict continuous and segmented chip formation in machining of pure metals such as OHFC Copper and commercially-pure Titanium (CP-Ti). Due to the physical basis of the proposed unified material model, the continuous chip formation observed in orthogonal cutting of OFHC copper is shown to be successfully predicted by the finite element model utilizing a version of the unified material model that explicitly accounts for microstructure evolution as well as dislocation drag as a plausible deformation mechanism applicable at the high strain rates common in metal cutting operations. The segmented or shear localized chip formation in orthogonal cutting of CP-Ti is also shown to be successfully simulated by the unified model after incorporating the inverse Hall-Petch effect arising from the ultrafine grain structure within the shear band. For both metals, the model is experimentally validated using flow stress data as well as machining data including cutting and thrust forces and relevant chip morphology parameters. Machining simulations carried out using the unified material model also yield useful further insight into the microstructure evolution during the machining process, which is shown to be consistent with the available experimental data and the known physical understanding of severe plastic deformation behavior of the metals.