On Cavitation, Configurational Forces and Implications for Fracture in a Nonlinearly Elastic Material

Experiments on polymers indicate that large tensile stress can induce cavitation, that is, the appearance of voids that were not previously evident in the material. This phenomenon can be viewed as either the growth of pre-existing infinitesimal holes in the material or, alternatively, as the spontaneous creation of new holes in an initially perfect body. In this paper our approach is to adopt both views concurrently within the framework of the variational theory of nonlinear elasticity. We model an elastomer on a macroscale as a void-free material and, on a microscale, as a material containing certain defects that are the only points at which hole formation can occur. Mathematically, this is accomplished by the use of deformations whose point singularities are constrained. One consequence of this viewpoint is that cavitation may then take place at a point that is not energetically optimal. We show that this disparity will generate configurational forces, a type of force identified previously in dislocations in crystals, in phase transitions in solids, in solidification, and in fracture mechanics. As an application of this approach we study the energetically optimal point for a solitary hole to form in a homogeneous and isotropic elastic ball subject to radial boundary displacements. We show, in particular, that the center of the ball is the unique optimal point. Finally, we speculate that the configurational force generated by cavitation at a non-optimal material point may be sufficient to result in the onset of fracture. The analysis utilizes the energy-momentum tensor, the asymptotics of an equilibrium solution with an isolated singularity, and the linear theory of elasticity at the stressed configuration that the body occupies immediately prior to cavitation. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A UNIFORMLY CONVERGENT DIFFERENCE SCHEME FOR THE SINGULAR PERTURBATION PROBLEM OF A HIGH ORDER ELLIPTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION

ＡＵＮＩＦＯＲＭＬＹＣＯＮＶＥＲＧＥＮＴＤＩＦＦＥＲＥＮＣＥＳＣＨＥＭＥＦＯＲＴＨＥＳＩＮＧＵＬＡＲＰＥＲＴＵＲＢＡＴＩＯＮＰＲＯＢＬＥＭＯＦＡＨＩＧＨＯＲＤＥＲＥＬＬＩＰＴＩＣＤＩＦＦＥＲＥＮＴＩＡＬＥＱＵＡＴＩＯＮ（刘国庆）（苏煜城）ＡＵＮＩＦＯ...     

Grain boundary,triple junction and quadruple point mobility controlled normal grain growth

Reduction in stored free energy provides the thermodynamic driving force for grain and bubble growth in polycrystals and foams. Evolution of polycrystalline networks exhibit the additional complication that grain growth may be controlled by several kinetic mechanisms through which the decrease in network energy occurs. Polyhedral boundaries, triple junctions (TJs), and quadruple points (QPs) are the geometrically distinct elements of three dimensional networks that follow Plateau’s rules, provided that grain growth is limited by diffusion through, and motion of, cell boundaries. Shvindlerman and co-workers have long recognized the kinetic influences on polycrystalline grain growth of network TJs and QPs. Moreover, the emergence of interesting polycrystalline nanomaterials underscored that TJs can indeed influence grain growth kinetics. Currently there exist few detailed studies concerned either with network distributions of grain size, number of faces per grain, or with ‘grain trajectories’, when grain growth is limited by the motion of its TJs or QPs. By contrast there exist abundant studies of classical grain growth limited by boundary mobility. This study is focused on a topological/geometrical representation of polycrystals to obtain statistical predictions of the grain size and face number distributions, as well as growth ‘trajectories’ during steady-state grain growth. Three limits to grain growth are considered, with grain growth kinetics controlled by boundary, TJ, and QP mobilities.     

The effect of points fattening on Hirzebruch surfaces

The purpose of this note is to study initial sequences of 0–dimensional subschemes of Hirzebruch surfaces and classify subschemes whose initial sequence has the minimal possible growth.     

Fine singularity analysis of solutions to the Laplace equation

We present here a fine singularity analysis of solutions to the Laplace equation in special polygonal domains in the plane. We assume piecewise constant Neumann data on one component of the boundary. Our motivation is to study the so‐called Berg effect, which is explained in the introduction. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A macroscopic model for an intermediate state between type‐I and type‐II superconductivity

A vectorial nonlocal and nonlinear parabolic problem on a bounded domain for an intermediate state between type‐I and type‐II superconductivity is proposed. The domain is for instance a multiband superconductor that combines the characteristics of both types. The nonlocal term is represented by a (space) convolution with a singular kernel arising in Eringen's model. The nonlinearity is coming from the power law relation by Rhyner. The well‐posedness of the problem is discussed under low regularity assumptions and the error estimate for a semi‐implicit time‐discrete scheme based on backward Euler approximation is established. In the proofs, the monotonicity methods and the Minty–Browder argument are used. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 31: 1551–1567, 2015     

一个奇摄动微分方程非线性混合边值问题

研究了一个三阶半线性微分方程的奇摄动非线性混合边值问题.利用边界层函数法构造了该问题的形式渐近解,并采用微分不等式理论证明了解的存在性,给出了渐近解的误差估计,最后得出了边界层函数指数型衰减的结论.     

Chebyshev centers and fixed point theorems

Brodskii and Milman proved that there is a point in C(K)$C(K)$, the set of all Chebyshev centers of K, which is fixed by every surjective isometry from K into K whenever K   is a nonempty weakly compact convex subset having normal structure in a Banach space. Motivated by this result, Lim et al. raised the following question namely “does there exist a point in C(K)$C(K)$ which is fixed by every isometry from K into K?”. In fact, Lim et al. proved that “if K is a nonempty weakly compact convex subset of a uniformly convex Banach space, then the Chebyshev center of K is fixed by every isometry T from K into K”. In this paper, we prove that if K   is a nonempty weakly compact convex set having normal structure in a strictly convex Banach space and F$\mathfrak{F}$ is a commuting family of isometry mappings on K   then there exists a point in C(K)$C(K)$ which is fixed by every mapping in F$\mathfrak{F}$.     

一类Hermitian鞍点矩阵的特征值估计

本文研究了一类大型稀疏Hermitian鞍点线性系统Az=(B E E* 0)(x y)=(f g)=b系数矩阵的特征值,其中B∈C~(p×p)是Hermitian正定阵矩阵,E∈C~(p×q)是列降秩.本文分别给出了该系数矩阵正特征值与负特征值界的一个估计式,同时通过数值算例验证本文所给出的特征值界的估计是合理且有效的.