Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Procedia Engineering 173 (2017) 1116 – 1121

11th International Symposium on Plasticity and Impact Mechanics, Implast 2016

Elastic-plastic Behavior of an Ellipsoidal Inclusion Embedded in an

Elastic Matrix
Prasun Jana∗
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad-826004, India

Abstract
In this paper, the stress-strain behavior of an elastic-plastic ellipsoidal inclusion embedded in an infinite elastic matrix is studied.
The parent elastic material is considered to be subjected to monotonically increasing far-field stresses. Stress-strain behaviors of the
inclusion are first studied using the commercial finite element package ABAQUS. Then a semi-analytical method is developed using
suitable extensions of the formulas used in Eshelby’s inclusion problem (1957). An excellent agreement in stress-strain behavior
is found between the finite element results and the semi-analytical method. The major contribution of this paper is, therefore,
the development of the semi-analytical method that has several advantages over the finite element solutions. The semi-analytical
method is quick and accurate. Additionally, when the inclusion geometry is very thin, the semi-analytical method remains viable
while the finite element method would require infeasibly finer mesh refinement.
©c 2017
2016The
TheAuthors. Published
Authors. by Elsevier
Published Ltd. This
by Elsevier B.V.is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of Implast 2016.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of Implast 2016
Keywords: ellipsoidal inclusion; elasto-plastic analysis; finite element; Eshelby tensor; semi-analytical approach

1. Introduction

Theory of ellipsoidal inclusions due to Eshelby [1,2] has been playing a key role in many micromechanics related
problems (see [3,4]). This theory has been extensively used for the homogenization schemes used for predicting
failures in composite materials [5]. There are also other several areas such as damage mechanics, geomechanics, and
biomechanics in which this theory has been used. See [6] for a detailed review of recent works on this subject.
Eshelby [1] formulated the elastic fields within an ellipsoidal inclusion in a homogeneous isotropic elastic infinite
medium when the inclusion is subjected to some uniform eigenstrain. The eigenstrain here means ‘stress-free strain’
which the inclusion would exhibit if not constrained by the surrounding material. Non-elastic strains such as due
to thermal expansion, misfit strains, phase transformation, and plastic deformation can serve as eigenstrains. If the
inclusion has different elastic moduli than the outer material, then it is called an ‘inhomogeneous inclusion’ (see Fig.
1).

∗ Corresponding author: Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. Tel.: +91 326 223 5053.
E-mail address: prasunjana@gmail.com

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of Implast 2016
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.12.075
 Prasun Jana / Procedia Engineering 173 (2017) 1116 – 1121 1117

Cijkl Cijkl

Ω Ω
Ω
ε*ij Cijkl , ε*ij

(a) (b)
Fig. 1. (a) Homogeneous inclusion (or simply an inclusion): The ellipsoidal subdomain (Ω) has same elastic moduli as the outer material and
contains eigenstrain (ε∗i j ). (b) Inhomogeneous inclusion: The subdomain (Ω) has different elastic moduli than the outer material and contains
eigenstrain (ε∗i j ). When the eigenstrain is zero the subdomain is called an inhomogeneity.

As mentioned above, there are huge number published research works on this topic of ellipsoidal inclusion prob-
lems. However, a careful literature survey suggests that most of these studies are for inclusions having elastic material
behavior whereas the cases of the elasto-plastic inclusions have not received much attention in the literature. Study of
these elasto-plastic inclusions may have potential applications in modeling internal energy dissipation (i.e. material
damping) due to elasto-plastic flaws within the material [7].
In this paper, we study the stress-strain behavior of a single elasto-plastic ellipsoidal inclusion embedded in an
infinite homogeneous isotropic elastic material. For the elasto-plastic inclusion, J2 flow theory with linear isotropic
hardening material behavior is considered. We begin with a finite element simulation in ABAQUS to study the stress
state and dissipation in this inclusion under far-field monotonic loading. Then a semi-analytical method is developed
for solving this elasto-plastic inclusion using suitable extensions of the formulas used in Eshelby’s inclusion problem.
Results obtained from this semi-analytical method are found to be in excellent agreement with the finite element
results. Details of these analyses are discussed below.

2. Finite Element analysis

A schematic of an ellipsoidal inclusion subjected to far-field stresses are shown in Fig. 2 (a). The inclusion size
will be taken small such that it behaves as if it is in an infinite material body.
In the finite element simulation in ABAQUS, a cube of 20 mm edge length is considered with a central ellipsoidal
flaw of a1 = 1 mm, a2 = 0.75 mm, and a3 = 0.5 mm. A quarter of the meshed model is shown in Fig. 2 (b). A total
of 82440 eight-node linear brick elements (C3D8RH) (see [8] for the element details) have been used to discretize
the volume. For better accuracy, high mesh refinement near the inclusion were used. Table 1 shows the material
properties used for the parent and inclusion material. The inclusion material is considered to follow J2 plasticity flow
theory with linear isotropic hardening behavior as K(α) = σ0yp + Hα. Here, σ0yp and H are material constants and α is
the hardening parameter (see [9]).
In ABAQUS, pseudostatic analysis is carried out with incremental changes in the far-field loads. The far-field
load (say σ0 ) is increased slowly up to that stress, in small increments from zero, using proportional loading. In our
analysis, 200 load steps are used. The load steps going from 1 to 200 are denoted using an artificial time that goes
from 0 to 1, called the normalized load step. A normalized load step of 0.3 then corresponds to the 60th step, at
which point the far-field load is 0.3 × σ0 . This terminology has been used below. The far-field stresses used for our
simulation is given in Table 2.
The results show that the stress state remains essentially uniform within the ellipsoidal inclusion, both before and
after yielding. For example, the contour for σ x at a normalized load step of 0.6 is shown in Fig. 3 (a).
1118 Prasun Jana / Procedia Engineering 173 (2017) 1116 – 1121

0
σzz x
y
0
τxz 0
τyz

0
σxx
0
τxy 0
σyy
Z
z

x X Y
y
(a) (b)
2 y2 z2
Fig. 2. (a) Ellipsoidal ( x2 + + = 1) elasto-plastic flaw embedded in an elastic material with far-field stresses σ0i j . (b) Quarter portion of the
a1 a22 a23
finite element mesh of the 3D model.

Table 1. Material properties (chosen arbitrarily) used in all the analyses in this paper.
Elastic parent material
Young’s modulus 200 GPa
Poisson’s ratio 0.3
Elasto-plastic flaw material
Young’s modulus 120 GPa
Poisson’s ratio 0.28
Initial yield strength (σ0yp ) 40 MPa
Elasto-plastic modulus (H) 10 GPa

Table 2. Far-field stresses considered in all the analyses in this paper

σ0xx σ0yy σ0zz τ0yz τ0zx τ0xy

150 MPa 200 MPa −110 MPa 80 MPa −150 MPa −140 MPa

We also select an arbitrary element near the centroid of the flaw, and plot all six stress components against nor-
malized load step in Fig. 3 (b). As expected, the stress state varies linearly until it reaches the yield envelope. Sub-
sequently, the stresses behaves in non-linear fashion. It is also seen that the normal stresses increases almost linearly
with far-field stress (i.e., the hydrostatic stress increases linearly). We now proceed to the development of our semi-
analytical approach for the analysis of this elasto-plastic inclusions.

3. Semi-analytical method

In this section, a semi-analytical formulation of this elaso-plastic inclusion problem is developed using classic
formulas due to Eshelby (see [1,3]). Let σ0i j be the far-field stress and and ε∗i j be the eigenstrain. The far-field strain is
ε0kl , satisfying σ0i j = Ci jkl ε0kl , where Ci jkl is the elasticity tensor of the parent material.
 Prasun Jana / Procedia Engineering 173 (2017) 1116 – 1121 1119

50
S, S11
σy

Stress components (in MPa)

(Avg: 75%)
40
+2.237e+02
+2.033e+02
+1.829e+02
+1.624e+02
+1.420e+02
30 σx
+1.216e+02
20
τyz
+1.012e+02
+8.078e+01
+6.036e+01
+3.995e+01 10
+1.953e+01
−8.845e−01
−2.130e+01 0
σz
−10
τxy
−20
Z ODB: elliptical_a1_b0p75_c0p5_run9.odb
τzx
−30
Step: Step−1
Increment 120: Step Time = 0.6000
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Primary Var: S, S11
X Y Normalized load step

(a) (b)

Fig. 3. (a) Plot of σx in one quarter of the model at a normalized load step of 0.6. The variation of σx within the inclusion is small. (b) Stress
components inside ellipsoidal elasto-plastic flaws.

The uniform stress state within the ellipsoidal inhomogeneous inclusion is then given by

σi j = CiΩjkl (ε0kl + εkl − ε∗kl ), with εi j = S i jkl ε∗∗

kl , (1)

where CiΩjkl is the elasticity tensor of the inclusion material, and S i jkl represents components of the Eshelby tensor.
The undetermined ε∗∗ kl in Eq. (1) is obtained from the equivalence equation

CiΩjkl (ε0kl + S klmn ε∗∗ ∗ 0 ∗∗ ∗∗

mn − εkl ) = Ci jkl (εkl + S klmn εmn − εkl ). (2)

We note that the above two equations can be directly obtained from [3]. Solving Eq. (2) for ε∗∗
i j and substituting in Eq.
(1), we obtain
σi j = Ai jkl ε0kl + Bi jkl ε∗kl , (3)
where Ai jkl and Bi jkl are tensors given in Appendix A.
Now, we address the problem of a elasto-plastic inclusion with isotropic hardening material behavior. In this case,
the plastic strain in the ellipsoidal inclusion is the eigenstrain. And this eigenstarin is not known in advance but must
be obtained as the solution progresses.
Since we will work with rate-independent incremental plasticity, we will use the rate form of Eq. (3) as

σ̇i j = Ai jkl ε̇0kl + Bi jkl ε̇klp or σ̇ = A : ε̇0 + B : ε̇p . (4)

p
We have used a different symbol (ε̇i j ) in Eq. (4) for the eigenstrain rate as it corresponds to the plastic strain in our
case.
We note here that Eq. (4) can be used for both purely elastic and elasto-plastic deformations. The plastic strain
rate ε̇ p = 0 as long as the material behaves elastically (initial loading, during unloading, etc.). When the stress state
inside the inclusion reaches the yield envelop plastic strain will be developed. The yield envelope in the present case
is based on the von Mises yield criterion (J2 flow theory),

√ 2
f (σ, α) = S : S − K(α) = 0, (5)
3

where S is the deviatoric stress tensor of σ, and K(α) = σ0yp + Hα corresponds to the linear isotropic hardening
material behavior (see [9]).
1120 Prasun Jana / Procedia Engineering 173 (2017) 1116 – 1121

50 0.35
Stress components (in MPa) σy
40 Semi-analytical
0.3 Abaqus

Dissipation (in N-mm)

30 σx 0.25
20
τyz 0.2
10
0.15
0 σz
0.1
−10
τxy
−20 0.05
τzx
−30 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Normalized load step Normalized load steps

(a) (b)
Fig. 4. (a) Comparison of semi-analytical method results against the ABAQUS results. (b) Comparison of plastic dissipation within the inclusion.

The rate of these plastic strain components is normal to the yield envelope. Therefore, one obtains

∂f
ε̇ p = γ (6)
∂σ
for some γ. Now from the consistency condition, we get

f˙ = ∂σ f : σ̇ + ∂α f · α̇ = 0, (7)

with α̇ = γ 23 (see [9]).
Above equations can be used for an analysis of monotonic far-field loading. In the beginning of loading the material
will behave as elastic. The stresses within the inclusion increase linearly as per Eq. (4) with ε̇ p = 0, and the Eq. (5)
has to be used for checking the onset of yielding. Once yielding takes place, i.e., in the plastic domain, Eqs. (4), (6)
and (7) are used simultaneously to solve for σ̇, ε̇ p and γ. Matlab’s inbuilt integration routine “ode45” has been used
to solve these equation to find the stress state.
Finally, the plastic energy dissipation (Wd ) within the inclusion is computed, using

Ẇd = (σ : ε̇ p )V, (8)

where V is the volume of the ellipsoid.

4. Results and discussions

Here, we compare the results from the above semi-analytical method with the finite element results presented
earlier. Figure 4 (a) shows the comparison. The stress plots shown in this figure actually contain two sets of visu-
ally indistinguishable superposed graphs, one from the semi-analytical calculation and another from the ABAQUS
simulation. We also compared the plastic dissipation from this two approaches in Fig. 4 (b).
Figures 4 (a) and (b) establish that the results from the semi-analytical method are in excellent agreement with
the finite element results. However, it can be noted that the semi-analytical method has advantages over the finite
element solutions. The semi-analytical method is quick and accurate. Additionally, when the inclusion geometry is
very thin, the semi-analytical method remains viable while the finite element method would require infeasibly finer
mesh refinement.
 Prasun Jana / Procedia Engineering 173 (2017) 1116 – 1121 1121

5. Conclusions

In this work, the stress-strain behaviour of an elasto-plastic ellipsoidal inclusion embedded within an infinite elastic
parent material has been studied. The study began with finite element simulation in ABAQUS. In the second part, a
semi-analytical method was developed using Eshelby’s formula for ellipsoidal inclusion. We showed that the results
from this semi-analytical method are in excellent agreement with the ABAQUS simulation results. We also pointed
out that the semi-analytical method has advantages over the finite element solutions. For very thin inclusion geometry,
the semi-analytical method will remain viable while the finite element analysis would require infeasibly finer mesh
refinement.
Therefore, the major contribution of this paper is the development of the semi-analytical method. In future, this
work will be extended for the combined hardening material model and for cyclically applied far-field stresses.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Sukanta Chakraborty, ISM Dhanbad, for useful discussions on this research topic.

Appendix A. Details of tensors Ai jkl and Bi jkl

The tensors Ai jkl and Bi jkl (written here as A and B for simplicity) of Eq. (3) are given by
 −1  −1
A = C Ω − C Ω S C + (C Ω − C)S (C − C Ω ), and B = C ∗ S C + (C Ω − C)S C Ω − C Ω ,

where S is the Eshelby tensor, and C and C Ω are the stiffness tensors.

References
[1] J.D. Eshelby, The determination of the elastic field of an ellipsoidal inclusion, and related problems, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 241 (1957) 376–396.
[2] J.D. Eshelby, The elastic field outside an ellipsoidal inclusion. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 252 (1959) 561–569.
[3] T. Mura, Micromechanics of Defects in Solids, second ed., Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 1987.
[4] J. Qu, M. Cherkaoui, Fundamentals of Micromechanics of Solids. Wiley, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2006.
[5] T. Mori, K. Tanaka, Average stress in matrix and average elastic energy of materials with misfitting inclusions. Acta Metall. 21 (1973) 571–574.
[6] K. Zhou, J.J. Hoh, X. Wang, L.M. Keer, J.H. Pang, B. Song, Q.J. Wang, A review of recent works on inclusions. Mech. Mater. 60 (2013)
144158.
[7] P. Jana, A. Chatterjee, Power-law damping from dispersed elasto-plastic flaws with Weibull-distributed strengths, Int. J. Mech. Sci. 87 (2014)
137–149.
[8] ABAQUS Inc., Analysis User’s Manual, Release 6.9 Documentation for ABAQUS, 2009.
[9] S.C. Simo, T.J.R Hughes, Computational Inelasticity, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1998.