Some Recent Developments in the Endochronic Theory with Application to Cyclic Histories

Constitutive equations with only two easily determined material constants predict the stress (strain) response of normalized mild steel to a variety of general strain (stress) histories, without a need for special unloading-reloading rules. The equations are derived from the endochronic theory of plasticity of isotropic materials with an intrinsic time scale defined in the plastic strain space. Agreement between theoretical predictions and experiments are are excellent quantitatively in cases of various uniaxial constant amplitude histories, variable uniaxial strain amplitude histories and cyclic relaxation. The cyclic ratcheting phenomenon is predicted by the present theory.