The Discontinuous Solutions of the Transport Equations for Compositional Flow in Porous Media

In the present paper we consider a multicomponent multiphase isothermal flow in porous media with mass exchange between phases. The system of equations of multiphase multicomponent flow has discontinuous solutions, but is not hyperbolic, except some particular cases. For this general, non-hyperbolic system, we propose a free energy condition to select unique physically admissible discontinuous solutions. We also develop a geometrical procedure which provides a tool to analyze the free energy condition. For a two-component mixture, analytical formulae are obtained for the allowed discontinuities.     

Strength or toughness? A criterion for crack onset at a notch

Both energy and stress criteria are necessary conditions for fracture but neither one nor the other are sufficient. Experiments by Parvizi et al. on transverse cracking in cross-ply laminates corroborate this assumption. Thanks to the singularity at the tip of the notch, the incremental form of the energy criterion gives a lower bound of admissible crack lengths. On the contrary, the stress criterion leads to an upper bound. The consistency between these two conditions provides a general form of a criterion for crack nucleation. It enjoys the desirable property of coinciding with the usual Griffith criterion to study the crack growth and with the stress criterion for the uniform traction along a straight edge. Comparisons with experiments carried out on homogeneous notched materials and on bimaterial structures show a good agreement.     

A Variational Formulation of¶Rate-Independent Phase Transformations¶Using an Extremum Principle

We propose a rate-independent, mesoscopic model for the hysteretic evolution of phase transformations in shape-memory alloys. The model uses the deformation and phase-indicator function as basic unknowns and the potentials for the elastic energy and for the dissipation as constitutive laws. Using the associated functionals, admissible processes are defined to be the ones which are stable at all times and which satisfy the energy inequality.This concept leads to a natural time-incremental method which consists in a minimization problem. The mesoscopic model is obtained by a relaxation procedure. It leads to new functionals involving the cross-quasiconvexification of the elastic stored-energy density. For a special case involving two phases of linearized elastic materials we show that the incremental problem provides existence of admissible processes for the time-continuous problem, if we let the time-step go to 0. Dedicated to Erwin Stein on the occasion of his seventiethbirthday     

A criterion for crack nucleation at a notch in homogeneous materials

Experiments of Parvizi et al. on transverse fracture of cross-ply laminates showed that both energy (Griffith) and strength criteria are necessary conditions for fracture but neither one nor the other are sufficient. Thanks to the singularity at the tip of the notch, the incremental form of the Griffith criterion gives a lower bound of admissible crack lengths. On the contrary, the strength criterion leads to an upper bound. The consistency between these two conditions provides a general form of a criterion for crack nucleation.     

A direct approach to fiber and membrane reinforced bodies. Part I. Stress concentrated on curves for modelling fiber reinforced materials

An approach is outlined to the equilibrium in fiber-reinforced materials in which the fibers are modeled as curves or lines with concentrated material properties. The system of forces representing the interaction of the fibers with the bulk matter is analyzed, and equilibrium of forces is derived from global laws. The displacements of the bulk matter are assumed to have continuous extension to the fibers. This forces the set of admissible deformations superquadratically integrable. This in turn forces the energy of the bulk of superquadratic growth. The material of the bulk matrix therefore cannot be linearly elastic. The energy of fibers can have a slower growth and can be quadratic. A formal set of assumptions is given under which an equilibrium state of minimum energy exists in the given external conditions. A weak form of equilibrium equations is derived for this equilibrium state. An explicitly calculable axisymmetric example is presented with an isotropic and quadratic energy of the matrix (linear elasticity) and linearly stretchable fiber. Since the superquadratic growth assumption is not satisfied, some peculiar features of the solution arise, such as the infinite limit of the radial displacement near the fiber. Nevertheless, from the obtained solution, we can compute the normal force in the fiber and the shear stress at the interface.     

On a variational principle in thermodynamics

The dynamic principle is proposed that a thermodynamic system evolves in time so that the total energy balance including the energy drawn from the environment becomes stationary for all admissible variations of thermodynamic states. It is shown that this principle allows to obtain variational characterizations of contact Hamiltonian equations (even in presence of ports), reaction equations and doubly nonlinear reaction–diffusion equations. Further, examples are discussed which support this principle.     

A direct approach to fiber and membrane reinforced bodies. Part II. Membrane reinforced bodies

The paper deals with membrane reinforced bodies with the membrane treated as a two-dimensional surface with concentrated material properties. The bulk response of the matrix is treated separately in two cases: (a) as a coercive nonlinear material with convex stored energy function expressed in the small strain tensor, and (b) as a no-tension material (where the coercivity assumption is not satisfied). The membrane response is assumed to be nonlinear in the surface strain tensor. For the nonlinear bulk response in Case (a), the existence of states of minimum energy is proved. Under suitable growth conditions, the equilibrium states are proved to be exactly states of minimum energy. Then, under appropriate invertibility condition of the stress function, the principle of minimum complementary energy is proved for equilibrium states. For the no-tension material in Case (b), the principle of minimum complementary energy (in the absence of the invertibility assumption) is proved. Also, a theorem is proved stating that the total energy of the system is bounded from below if and only if the loads can be equilibrated by a stress field that is statically admissible and the bulk stress is negative semidefinite. Two examples are given. In the first, we consider the elastic semi-infinite plate with attached stiffener on the boundary (Melan’s problem). In the second example, we present a stress solution for a rectangular panel with membrane occupying the main diagonal plane.     

An Exact Riemann Solver for Multicomponent Turbulent Flow

The main objective of this paper is to provide some adequate way to compute the non-conservative hyperbolic system which describes a multicomponent turbulent flow. The model is written for an isentropic gas. The exact solution of the Riemann Problem (RP) associated to the hyperbolic system is exhibited. It is composed of constant states separated by rarefaction waves, or shock waves and a contact discontinuity.

The selection of the admissible part of the shock curve is obtained using an entropy criterion. This entropy is the total energy of the system. Thanks to the latter, one may compute the exact solution of the Riemann problem, assuming genuinely non linear fields contain sufficiently weak shocks.     

Entropy maximum principle for a steady gas flow in a channel

An expression is derived for the maximum admissible increment of entropy in a steady gas flow in a variable-section channel with energy supply and with dissipation of kinetic energy. A condition of the transition through the velocity of sound is obtained for a quasi-one-dimensional flow. Examples of flows are considered.     

The method of transformation of the boundaries for structure the admissible displacements

In this paper the method of transformation of the boundaries for structure the admissible displacements with various boundary conditions is presented. What is called the method of transformation of the boundaries is that, first we transform the actual system into the basic system and additional boundary forces and displacements on the basis of the superposition principle, then apply variational principles to the basic system, finally find the permissible displacement of the actual system by means of the method of transformation of the series.In this paper, we also give mixed energy principles under variation of boundary conditions. The mixed energy principles as the potential and complementary energy principles under variation of boundary conditions are all the chief theoretical fundamental of the method of transformation of the boundaries.Applying the method of transformation of the boundaries, we form the permissible displacements of rectangular plates of plane stress and bending problems with various edge conditions.Because the method of transformation of the boundaries is in progress to follow the variational principles and definite program to form permissible displacements, the difficulty in supposing and piecing together permissible displacements in the Rayleigh-Ritz method will be overcome.     

What is the Optimal Shape of a Pipe?

We consider an incompressible fluid in a three-dimensional pipe, following the Navier–Stokes system with classical boundary conditions. We are interested in the following question: is there any optimal shape for the criterion “energy dissipated by the fluid”? Moreover, is the cylinder the optimal shape? We prove that there exists an optimal shape in a reasonable class of admissible domains, but the cylinder is not optimal. For that purpose, we define the first order optimality condition, thanks to the adjoint state and we prove that it is impossible that the adjoint state be a solution of this over-determined system when the domain is the cylinder. At last, we show some numerical simulations for that problem.     

Phase field model for coupled displacive and diffusive microstructural processes under thermal loading

A non-isothermal phase field model that captures both displacive and diffusive phase transformations in a unified framework is presented. The model is developed in a formal thermodynamic setting, which provides guidance on admissible constitutive relationships and on the coupling of the numerous physical processes that are active. Phase changes are driven by temperature-dependent free-energy functions that become non-convex below a transition temperature. Higher-order spatial gradients are present in the model to account for phase boundary energy, and these terms necessitate the introduction of non-standard terms in the energy balance equation in order to satisfy the classical entropy inequality point-wise. To solve the resulting balance equations, a Galerkin finite element scheme is elaborated. To deal rigorously with the presence of high-order spatial derivatives associated with surface energies at phase boundaries in both the momentum and mass balance equations, some novel numerical approaches are used. Numerical examples are presented that consider boundary cooling of a domain at different rates, and these results demonstrate that the model can qualitatively reproduce the evolution of microstructural features that are observed in some alloys, especially steels. The proposed model opens a number of interesting possibilities for simulating and controlling microstructure pattern development under combinations of thermal and mechanical loading.     

The maximum potential energy of elastic rods under axial gravitational load

An optimal design problem solved previously for an elastic rod hanging under its own weight found the distribution of the cross-sectional area that minimized the total potential energy stored in an equilibrium state, with the admissible designs bounded above and below and also subject to the constraint of prescribed total volume. This work solves the companion problem of the design that stores the maximum potential energy under the same constraint conditions. The method used is based on a comparison theorem for sandwich structures.     

基于区域分解的环肋圆柱壳-圆锥壳组合结构振动分析

提出了一种区域分解法来分析不同边界条件下环肋骨圆柱壳-圆锥壳组合结构的振动特性.首先把组合壳体分解为自由的圆柱壳、圆锥壳段;视环肋骨为离散元件,根据肋骨与圆柱壳段之间的变形协调条件,将肋骨的动能和应变能附加于圆柱壳段能量泛函中.然后基于分区广义变分和最小二乘加权残值法将所有分区界面的位移协调方程引入到组合壳体的能量泛函中.圆柱壳段、圆锥壳段位移变量的周向和轴向分量分别采用Fourier级数和Chebyshev多项式展开.以自由-自由、自由-固支和固支-固支边界条件的环肋骨组合壳体为例,采用区域分解法分析了其自由振动及在不同激励下的振动响应.通过与有限元软件ANSYS结果进行对比,发现两种方法计算结果非常吻合,验证了区域分解方法的计算精度和高效性.     

Two-sided estimates in unilateral elasticity

The paper presents an extension to unilateral problems of the classical method of bounding (above and below) the solutions of linear self-adjoint boundary value problems. Using this extension the solution of the general unilateral problem in linear elasticity is bounded in energy by two suitable defined admissible states belonging to two complementary convex sets.     

On Compactness, Domain Dependence and Existence of Steady State Solutions to Compressible Isothermal Navier–Stokes Equations

The steady state system of isothermal Navier–Stokes equations is considered in two dimensional domain including an obstacle. The shape optimisation problem of minimisation of the drag with respect to the admissible shape of the obstacle is defined. The generalized solutions for the Navier–Stokes equations are introduced. The existence of an optimal shape is proved in the class of admissible domains. In general the solutions are not unique for the problem under considerations.     

Micromechanical analysis of volumetric growth in the context of open systems thermodynamics and configurational mechanics. Application to tumor growth

We adopt in this paper the physically and micromechanically motivated point of view that growth (resp. resorption) occurs as the expansion (resp. contraction) of initially small tissue elements distributed within a host surrounding matrix, due to the interfacial motion of their boundary. The interface motion is controlled by the availability of nutrients and mechanical driving forces resulting from the internal stresses that built in during the growth. A general extremum principle of the zero potential for open systems witnessing a change of their mass due to the diffusion of nutrients is constructed, considering the framework of open systems thermodynamics. We postulate that the shape of the tissue element evolves in such a way as to minimize the zero potential among all possible admissible shapes of the growing tissue elements. The resulting driving force for the motion of the interface sets a surface growth models at the scale of the growing tissue elements, and is conjugated to a driving force identified as the interfacial jump of the normal component of an energy momentum tensor, in line with Hadamard’s structure theorem. The balance laws associated with volumetric growth at the mesoscopic level result as the averaging of surface growth mechanisms occurring at the microscopic scale of the growing tissue elements. The average kinematics has been formulated in terms of the effective growth velocity gradient and elastic rate of deformation tensor, both functions of time. This formalism is exemplified by the simulation of the avascular growth of multicell spheroids in the presence of diffusion of nutrients, showing the respective influence of mechanical and chemical driving forces in relation to generation of internal stresses.     

An Existence Theorem for Nonlinearly Elastic ‘Flexural’ Shells

The two-dimensional equations of a nonlinearly elastic ‘flexural’ shell have been recently identified and justified by V. Lods and B. Miara, by means of the method of formal asymptotic expansions applied to the three-dimensional equations of nonlinear elasticity. These equations can be recast as a minimization problem for a ‘two-dimensional energy’ over a manifold of ‘admissible deformations’. The stored energy function is a quadratic expression in terms of the exact difference between the curvature tensor of the deformed middle surface and that of the undeformed one; the admissible deformations are those that preserve the metric of the undeformed middle surface and satisfy boundary conditions of clamping or of simple support. We establish here that this minimization problem has at least one solution. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Extensions of the Prager-Shield theory of optimal plastic design

The Prager-Shield associated displacement field method for optimal plastic design is extended to multi-component specific cost functions and multiple load conditions, and a lower bound theorem based on kinematic requirements only is introduced. Since any statically admissible stress field results in an upper bound, the proposed theorem provides a simple method for establishing bounds on the optimal cost. By a simple substitution of parameters into the general equations presented, the optimality criteria can be obtained for particular design problems. Examples of optimal fibre-reinforced plates are given.