Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Strain localization in mild steel submitted to a sequential loading paths is investigated at macroscopic, mesoscopic and microscopic scales. The experimental results demonstrate that the morphology of the localization and the nominal load-displacement curves depend on the microstructural anisotropy. A crystalline model using a finite element code is proposed. The anisotropy is described by a hardening matrix whose terms correspond to dislocation-dislocation interactions and depend on the evolution of the dislocation densities on the activated slip systems during the sequential tests. The strain localization predicted by this model fits with the experimental observation and allows us to assume that localization is correlated to the saturation on the activated slip systems.