2016 Volume 57 Issue 662 Pages 230-243
After a concise review of the classical theory of plasticity, the main isotropic and anisotropic yield criteria proposed in the literature are succinctly reviewed. More emphasis is given to yield conditions expressed with principal stresses and their extension to plastic anisotropy based on linear tensor transformations. In this article, the yield functions are considered as effective plastic potentials for the determination of tensorial stress-strain relationships. For sheet metals, testing procedures needed to characterize anisotropy and methods suitable to extract the corresponding coefficients are described. Finally, further constitutive descriptions suitable for application to industrial sheet forming processes are discussed.