Plastic distortion as a fundamental mechanism in nonlinear mesomechanics of plastic deformation and fracture

Any deformed solid represents two self-consistent functional subsystems: a 3D crystal subsystem and a 2D planar subsystem (surface layers and all internal interfaces). In the planar subsystem, which lacks thermodynamic equilibrium and translation invariance, a primary plastic flow develops as nonlinear waves of structural transformations. At the nanoscale, such planar nonlinear transformations create lattice curvature in the 3D subsystem, resulting in bifurcational interstitial states there. The bifurcational states give rise to a fundamentally new mechanism of plastic deformation and fracture—plastic distortion—which is allowed for neither in continuum mechanics nor in fracture mechanics. The paper substantiates that plastic distortion plays a leading role in dislocation generation and glide, plasticity and superplasticity, plastic strain localization and fracture.