The concept of material forces in phase transition problems within the level-set framework

The dynamics of a phase transition front in solids using the level set method is examined in this paper. Introducing an implicit representation of singular surfaces, a regularized version of the sharp interface model arises. The interface transforms into a thin transition layer of nonzero thickness where all quantities take inhomogeneous expressions within the body. It is proved that the existence of an inhomogeneous energy of the material predicts inhomogeneity forces that drive the singularity. The driving force is a material force entering the canonical momentum equation (pseudo-momentum) in a natural way. The evolution problem requires a kinetic relation that determines the velocity of the phase transition as a function of the driving force. Here, the kinetic relation is produced by invoking relations that can be considered as the regularized versions of the Rankine–Hugoniot jump conditions. The effectiveness of the method is illustrated in a shape memory alloy bar.     

Remarks on the Eshelbian thermomechanics of materials

The notion of Legendre–Fenchel transformation is used jointly with that of continuum mechanics on the material manifold (so-called Eshelbian mechanics) in order to specify more easily the relevant thermodynamical regime. This has direct consequences in the formulation of the appropriate driving force acting on various singular surfaces. Thanks to the notion of material “thermal” force, the formalism also provides directly a proof of theorems such as those of Vazsonyi–Crocco, Helmholtz, and Bernoulli.     

Approaches to dynamic fracture modelling at finite deformations

The focus of the present paper is on the finite element modelling of dynamic fracture based on the concept of locally enriched element shape functions in the vicinity of the crack, in line with the eXtended Finite Element Method (X-FEM). For this purpose, the proper governing equations for the case of a propagating crack within a hyperelastic material is established, including the definition of the concept of material motion which kinematically describes the progression of the crack. Furthermore, two different approaches to describe the material degradation and separation are proposed. The first approach, denoted the material crack driving force model, is based on the concept of material (or configurational) forces associated with the material motion. The basic motivation is that, in this context, a driving force is identified at the crack tip, which points in the direction of maximum energy release upon crack propagation. An additional interesting feature of this force is that the projection in the crack propagation direction corresponds to the energy released for such a propagation, whereby an intuitive criterion for crack propagation based on the direction and magnitude of this force is proposed. The second approach is based on the classical cohesive zone concept, extended to include rate effects to capture experimentally observed phenomena such as growing process zones during propagation as well as limited crack propagation speeds well below the theoretical limit. Both models are investigated and compared in a couple of numerical examples in the latter part of the paper, showing both the predictive capabilities as well as some limitations of the two approaches. It has also been shown that, for a specific set of parameters, the two models can reproduce (almost) the same response.     

Inelastic material behavior and fracture mechanics: a variational approach

Summary A variational principle is presented, which relates the macroscopic fracture response of a mechanical component to its microscopic, inelastic material behavior. The principle allows a comparison between the crack driving force, expressed by the J-integral, and an integral expression of the fracture resistance. On this basis, the critical values of J are calculated for a Griffith crack under mixed-mode loading. The preliminary check with data available in literature shows a fairly good agreement. Received 18 July 1998; accepted for publication 9 February 1999     

Singular loadings in elasticity problems and singular solutions of the corresponding integral equations

The method of singular integral equations is an efficient method for the formulation and numerical solution of plane and antiplane, static and dynamic, isotropic and anisotropic elasticity problems. Here we consider three cases of singular loadings of the elastic medium: by a force, by a moment and by a loading distribution with a simple pole. These loadings cause corresponding singularities in the right-hand side function and in the unknown function of the integral equation. A method for the numerical solution of the singular integral equation under the above singular loadings is proposed and the validity of this equation at the singular points is investigated.     

Removability of singular sets of harmonic maps

It is proved that a harmonic map with small energy and the monotonicity property is smooth if its singular set is rectifiable and has a finite uniform density; moreover, the monotonicity property holds if the singular set has a lower dimension or its gradient has higher integrability. This work generalizes the results in [CL, DF, LG12], which were proved under the assumption that the singular sets are isolated points or smooth submanifolds.     

Green’s function of bimaterials comprising all cases of material degeneracy

For bimaterials with planar interfaces subjected to a line force and dislocation, Green’s functions are determined for all types of anisotropic materials including the nondegenerate, degenerate and extra-degenerate cases. The changes in Green’s function caused by material degeneracy are twofold: (i) implicit changes, attributable to material effects only and characterized by high-order eigenvectors and their intrinsic coupling in the higher-order eigensolutions; (ii) explicit changes, influenced by boundary and interface conditions, that cause additional terms in Green’s function. Material degeneracy affects the angular variation of the singular stress field, which may have significant implication on the failure prediction of strongly anisotropic materials. For all material types, Green’s functions are obtained for bimaterials with a planar interface, and for multi-material wedges subjected to a line force and dislocation at the vertex. The results are expressed in a concise notation in terms of the complete set of eigenvectors and kernel matrices of analytic functions.     

Inhomogeneity effects on the crack driving force in elastic and elastic-plastic materials

This article evaluates the effect of material inhomogeneities on the crack-tip driving force in general inhomogeneous bodies and reports results for bimaterial composites. The theoretical model, based on Eshelby material forces, makes no assumptions about the distribution of the inhomogeneities or the constitutive properties of the materials. Inhomogeneities are modeled by making the stored energy have an explicit dependence on the reference coordinates. Then the material inhomogeneity effect on the crack-tip driving force is quantified by the term C_inh, which is the integral of the gradient of the stored energy in the direction of crack growth. The model is demonstrated by two model problems: (i) bimaterial elastic composite using asymptotic solutions and (ii) graded elastic and elastic-plastic compact tension specimen using numerical methods for stress analysis.     

Wall-modeling for large-eddy simulation of flows around an axisymmetric body using the diffuse-interface immersed boundary method

A novel method is proposed to combine the wall-modeled large-eddy simulation(LES) with the diffuse-interface direct-forcing immersed boundary(IB) method.The new developments in this method include:(i) the momentum equation is integrated along the wall-normal direction to link the tangential component of the effective body force for the IB method to the wall shear stress predicted by the wall model;(ii) a set of Lagrangian points near the wall are introduced to compute the normal component of the effective body force for the IB method by reconstructing the normal component of the velocity. This novel method will be a classical direct-forcing IB method if the grid is fine enough to resolve the flow near the wall. The method is used to simulate the flows around the DARPA SUBOFF model. The results obtained are well comparable to the measured experimental data and wall-resolved LES results.     

Secondary Deformations Due to Axial Shearing of the Annular Region Between Two Eccentrically Placed Cylinders

Fosdick and Kao [1] extended a conjecture of Ericksen's [2] for non-linear fluids, to non-linear elastic solids, and showed that unless the material moduli of an isotropic elastic material satisfied certain special relations, axial shearing of cylinders would be necessarily accompanied by secondary deformations if the cross-section were not a circle or the annular region between two concentric circles. Further, they used the driving force as the small parameter for a perturbation analysis and showed that the secondary deformation will occur at fourth order, much in common with what is known for non-linear fluids. Here, we show that if on the other hand the driving force is not small (of O(1)), but the departure of the cylinder from circular symmetry is small, then secondary deformations appear at first order, the parameter for perturbance being the divergence from circular symmetry. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Application of material forces to fracture of inhomogeneous materials: illustrative examples

The material forces concept has become an elegant tool in continuum mechanics for the calculation of the thermodynamic driving force of a defect. Based on this concept, we have recently shown that inhomogeneities essentially shield or anti-shield crack tips from applied far-field stresses. The goal of this paper is to illustrate this by considering the model example of a crack in a CT-type specimen that contains a bimaterial interface. The crack driving force is calculated as the sum of the far-field driving force and the crack-tip shielding or anti-shielding. Several cases of inhomogeneity in either thermal or elastic properties are considered. Rather simple hand calculations are provided in addition to numerical results to illustrate the advantages of using the material forces concept.     

Universal Singular Sets in the Calculus of Variations

For regular one-dimensional variational problems, Ball and Nadirashvilli introduced the notion of the universal singular set of a Lagrangian L and established its topological negligibility. This set is defined to be the set of all points in the plane through which the graph of some absolutely continuous L-minimizer passes with infinite derivative. Motivated by Tonelli’s partial regularity results, the question of the size of the universal singular set in measure naturally arises. Here we show that universal singular sets are characterized by being essentially purely unrectifiable—that is, they intersect most Lipschitz curves in sets of zero length and any compact purely unrectifiable set is contained within the universal singular set of some smooth Lagrangian with given superlinear growth. This gives examples of universal singular sets of Hausdorff dimension two, filling the gap between previously known one-dimensional examples and Sychëv’s result that universal singular sets are Lebesgue null. We show that some smoothness of the Lagrangian is necessary for the topological size estimate, and investigate the relationship between growth of the Lagrangian and the existence of (pathological) rectifiable pieces in the universal singular set. We also show that Tonelli’s partial regularity result is stable in that the energy of a “near” minimizer u over the set where it has large derivative is controlled by how far u is from being a minimizer.     

The instability mechanism of single and multilayer Newtonian and viscoelastic flows down an inclined plane

The instability mechanism of single and multilayer flow of Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids down an inclined plane has been examined based on a rigorous energy analysis as well as careful examination of the eigenfunctions. These analyses demonstrate that the free surface instability in single and multilayer flows in the limit of longwave disturbances (i.e., the most dangerous disturbances) arise due to the perturbation shear stresses at the free surface. Specifically, for viscoelastic flows, the elastic forces are destabilizing and the main driving force for the instability is the coupling between the base flow and the perturbation velocity and stresses and their gradient at the free surface. For Newtonian flows at finite Re, the driving force for the interfacial instability in the limit of longwaves depends on the placement of the less viscous fluid. If the less viscous fluid is adjacent to the solid surface then the main driving force for the instability is interfacial friction, otherwise the bulk contribution of Reynolds stresses drives the instability. For viscoelastic fluids in the limit of vanishingly small Re, the driving force for the instability is the coupling of the base flow and perturbation velocity and stresses and their gradients across the interface. In the limit of shortwaves the interfacial stability mechanism of flow down inclined plane is the same as plane Poiseuille flows (Ganpule and Khomami 1998, 1999a, b). Received: 20 October 2000/Accepted: 11 January 2001     

Determination of the driving force acting on a kinked crack

Summary A variational principle is formulated for a body containing a crack in equilibrium. An expression for the driving force acting on the crack admitting nontangential virtual crack extensions is derived. As a consequence of a variational principle, crack equilibrium criterion under mixed-mode loading conditions is obtained. For general 3-D problems, the magnitude as well as the direction of the driving force are precisely determined. Fracture locus for three combined modes is calculated. Received 18 June 1998; accepted for publication 7 January 1999     

Thermoelastic driving forces on singular surfaces

The paper deals with singular surfaces in thermoelastic materials. A new kinetic relation is obtained for surfaces with discontinuous temperature, which is generalizing the relation for the continuous case. It is shown that the deduced driving force naturally corresponds to the thermoelastic pseudomomentum balance previously proposed by Dascalu and Maugin [J. Elastic. 39 (1995) 201].     

GREEN＇S FUNCTIONS OF TWO－DIMENSIONAL ANISOTROPIC BODY WITH A PARABOLIC BOUNDARY

ＧＲＥＥＮ＇ＳＦＵＮＣＴＩＯＮＳＯＦＴＷＯ－ＤＩＭＥＮＳＩＯＮＡＬＡＮＩＳＯＴＲＯＰＩＣ ＢＯＤＹ ＷＩＴＨ Ａ ＰＡＲＡＢＯＬＩＣ ＢＯＵＮＤＡＲＹ（胡元太）（赵兴华）ＧＲＥＥＮ＇ＳＦＵＮＣＴＩＯＮＳＯＦＴＷＯ－ＤＩＭＥＮＳＩＯＮＡＬＡＮＩＳＯＴＲＯＰ?..     

Fracture and Singularities of the Mass-Density Gradient Field

A continuum mechanical theory of fracture without singular fields is proposed. The primary contribution is the rationalization of the structure of a ‘law of motion’ for crack-tips, essentially as a kinematical consequence and involving topological characteristics. Questions of compatibility arising from the kinematics of the model are explored. The thermodynamic driving force for crack-tip motion in solids of arbitrary constitution is a natural consequence of the model. The governing equations represent a new class of pattern-forming equations.     

Asymptotic Analysis of the Nonlinear Boussinesq Problem for a Kind of Incompressible Rubber Material (Compression Case)

A half rubber space compressed by a concentrated force normal to the surface is asymptotically analyzed based on large strain elastic theory. The material domain near the singular point is divided into an expanding domain and a shrinking domain. The asymptotic equations are derived and solved individually for both domains. The solutions to expanding and shrinking domains are further assembled together so that there is only one free parameter left which can indicate the amplitude of the singular stress and strain field. Finally, the amplitude parameter of the field is determined by the given concentrated force. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A novel method of determining the sole configuration of tensegrity structures

A novel analysis method is presented for form-finding of tensegrity structures. The spectral decomposition of the force density matrix and the singular value decomposition of the equilibrium matrix are performed iteratively to find the feasible sets of nodal coordinates and force densities. An algorithm of determining the sole configuration of free-form tensegrities is provided by specifying an independent set of nodal coordinates, which indicates the geometrical and mechanical properties of the structures can be at least partly controlled by the proposed method. Several illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the efficiency and robustness in finding self-equilibrium configurations of tensegrity structures.