The Concept and Application of the Bounding Surface in

Plasticity Theory

YANNIS F. DAFALIAS
Department of Civil Engineering
University of California
Davis, California 95616 U.S.A.

Summary
The concept of the bounding surface in stress space is presented, and a novel
unified formulation of the corresponding rate independent constitutive plastic
relations is given. The salient feature of the bounding surface approach is
that plastic deformation occurs for stress states within the surface at a rate
which depends on the proximity between the current stress point and an
"image" stress point on the bounding surface defined by a proper mapping
rule. The material exhibits a memory of past loading history by means of
plastic internal variables, and a projected "foresight" by means of the distance
between actual and "image" stress points. Particular models and corresponding
applications are presented within the general framework.

Introduction

The inadequacy of the classical yield surface plasticity formulation to describe

realistically the material response under cyclic loading conditions necessitated
the development of new concepts [13,15,18]. The purpose of this paper is
to give a novel unified presentation of the more recent concept of the
"Bounding Surface" [1 ,If, 5,9] which possesses certain attractive features of
simplicity, and show the application of different versions to the response of
various structural materials subjected to random cyclic loading.

The Bounding Surface Formulation of Rate Independent Plasticity

Assuming the cartesian decomposition of the total strain rate into an elastic
and a plastic part ~p. and defining the state by means of the stress 0.. and
ij ij
a set of plastic internal variables q (e.g., plastic work, plastic strains,
n
residual "back" stresses, etc.), simple rate independent constitutive relations
can be given following the basic idea presented in [11] by

L = (11K) L .. 0 ..
1) 1)
(1)

J. Hult et al. (eds.), Physical Non-Linearities in Structural Analysis

© Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg 1981
 57

.p
qn < L > r n' E: ••
1J
=< L > R ..
1J
(2)

where < L> LH(L), H being the step function, L is the loading function,
K the plastic modulus, L.. the loading direction (or vector) in stress space
1J
and r n' Rij functions of the state. The inclusion of K in L allows for the
description of unstable behavior when K~O. It can be shown [l2] that the
essence of plastic irreversibility requires that Lij = t( a f/ acrij ) where
f(cr .. ,q ) = 0 is a loading surface and t an integrating factor. One of the
1J n
most important objectives, especially for cyclic loading, is the determination
of the change of K. In the classical approach the determination of K from
the consistency condition £=0 proved to be ineffective for reverse plastic
loading behavior, even for elaborate hardening rules [7].

The bounding surface concept offers a more flexible way for the determination
of K which can be illustrated as follows. A typical uniaxial stress-plastic
strain curve converges with specific "bounds" as shown in Fig. lao The slope
EP of the curve (the uniaxial counterpart of K) can be considered a function
of the distance 15 between the current state A and a corresponding "image"
point A on the associated bound, such that EP = 00 for yielding initiation
and EP =EP when the curve converges with the bound and 15 =0, EP being the
o 0
bound slope. Such a description has the advantage that once the material
response has been "captured" at the extremes {initial yield and "bound"

YIELD SURFACE

nij

Figure la,b. The bounding/yield surface model in uniaxial

and multiaxial stress space.