Trans. Nonferrous Met. Soc. China 28(2018) 1200−1215 Finite element analysis of stress−strain localization and distribution in Al−4.5Cu−2Mg alloy Rahul BHANDARI 1 , Prosanta BISWAS 2 , Manas Kumar MONDAL 2 , Durbadal MANDAL 2 1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Birbhum Institute of Engineering and Technology, Suri-731101, India; 2. Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur-713209, India Received 23 June 2017; accepted 12 December 2017 Abstract: Finite element analysis has been carried out to understand the effect of various processing routes and condition on the microscale deformation behavior of Al–4.5Cu–2Mg alloy. The alloy has been developed through four different routes and condition, i.e. conventional gravity casting with and without refiner, rheocasting and SIMA process. The optical microstructures of the alloy have been used to develop representative volume elements (RVEs). Two different boundary conditions have been employed to simulate the deformation behavior of the alloy under uniaxial loading. Finally, the simulated stress−strain behavior of the alloy is compared with the experimental result. It is found that the microstructural morphology has a significant impact on stress and strain distribution and load carrying capacity. The eutectic phase always carries a higher load than the α(Al) phase. The globular α(Al) grains with thinner and uniformly distributed eutectic network provide a better stress and strain distribution. Owing to this, SIMA processed alloy has better stress and strain distribution than other processes. Finally, the simulated yield strength of the alloy is verified by experiment and they have great agreement. Key words: Al−4.5Cu−2Mg alloy; microstructure; α(Al) phase; eutectic phase; finite element analysis; micromechanical response 1 Introduction The micromechanics based study is gaining lots of research interest for in-depth analysis of various engineering aspects and applications. The micro- mechanical approach is an important technique to understand the microscale deformation behavior of materials using an analytical and numerical method. In general, analytical methods are capable of providing the simpler reasonable predictions of microstructural features. These predictions are not enough to evaluate the actual morphology of a microstructure. This limitation has been overcome through the numerical methods. This approach includes computer numerical modelling that increases the realm of predictions through simplifying assumptions about size, shape and spatial distribution of grains/particles. Thus, the computational modelling and simulation flamed up the micromechanics based studies. The micromechanics based studies of a dual phase material are terribly a robust job to assess the non-uniformities of the phases of a microstructure. However, this approach tends to be a powerful tool to get a fruitful prediction of the deformation and fatigue behavior of alloys [1]. Recently, SUN et al [2] vectorized the micrograph utilizing ArcMap and Photoshop and studied the failure mode of dual phase steel using the ABAQUS software. Furthermore, GANESH and CHAWLA [3] simulated the tensile behavior in the Abaqus environment by vectorizing the digital image of microstructure through an image processing software Raster-Vect. PAUL [1] developed the real microstructure based model using SEM images and simulated the microscale deformation behavior and failure initiation of dual phase steel using HyperMesh and ABAQUS software. In a recent work, SUI et al [4] studied the influence of microstructure features on deformation behavior and strain distribution of a cylindrical section using ANSYS/LS-DYNA software. In another study, ZHANG et al [5] developed a microstructure based on 3D cellular automaton (CA) algorithm and investigated the deformation behavior of polycrystalline ferritic stainless steel under tensile loading by finite element modeling. It was reported that the local stress and strain fields show non-uniformity at mesoscale. It was concluded that the deformation behavior of grains is Corresponding author: Manas Kumar MONDAL; Tel: +91-343-2754736; Fax: +91-343-2547375; E-mail: manas.nitdgp@gmail.com DOI: 10.1016/S1003-6326(18)64758-2