Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The effect of crystallographic texture and grain size on the cyclic hardening of FCC polycrystals was studied using copper as a model material. Samples with textures approximately random and two grain sizes were tested under cyclic loading. The cyclic response for high values of the plastic strain amplitude of the random-textured material was softer than that of polycrystals with strong <111>-<100> texture reported in [1], and almost the same at low plastic strains, when similar testing conditions were used. The cyclic behavior of specimens with different grain sizes and similar texture was almost the same as well. This result shows that texture had a much more important effect on the cyclic behavior of polycrystalline copper than the grain size. The effect of ramp loading as a pretreatment was also studied. The results show that large grained samples had a softer cyclic response after the ramp than small grained ones, but the effect was still smaller than that of texture.