Plasticity - Cyclic Hardening

Hi all,

I am modelling a process where a steel plate is subject to cyclic forces that cause plastic deformation.

As the process is cyclic I am inclined to use the kinematic hardening option - I am however slightly confused by the description in the COMSOL documentation.

Am i correct in thinking that the kinematic hardening model uses Pragers rule and is therefore a bi-linear model?

Within the isotropic hardening module there is an option to input a user defined hardening function. Clearly this can be non linear however I presume this can never recreate the kinematic model i.e moving the yield surface as opposed to extending it?

Does anyone have any experience implementing a kinematic hardening model in comsol other than the default?

Also as an aside, I am running a simulation of cyclic loading. Currently I have the load described as a variable of time and am running a time dependent solution over a number of cycles. Is there a more efficient way to do this? possibly using the stationary solver?

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks