An experimental investigation on isoclinic parameters in viscoelastoplastic materials under cyclic stresses

Photovisco-elastoplasticity has been developed and applied to various problems in nonlinear stress analysis as an extension of photoelasticity into nonlinear photomechanics. In photoelasticity, because stress is simply related to strain, isochromatics are proportional to either the principal stress difference or the principal strain difference and isoclinics indicate the directions of either principal stresses or principal strains separately. However, in photovisco-elastoplasticity, these optical responses are nonlinearly related to both stress and strain state simultaneously. Thus isochromatics are related nonlinearly with both the principal stress and strain differences. Isoclinics depend on the direction of principal strain as well as that of principal stress. Concerning now isoclinic parameter: according to the results of experiments performed by us for the deformation state where the directions of principal stress and strain do not coincide with one another, it has been found that isoclinic parameter moves gradually from the direction of principal stress to that of principal strain with increasing viscous deformation under constant stress. In the present research, extending our previous investigations, the behavior of isoclinic parameter has been examined experimentally under cyclic stressing, where the direction of principal stress changes alternately. In the course of an experiment, the variation of isoclinic parameter in relation to the number of cycles was measured together with the corresponding strain state on the thin-walled tubular specimen of celluloid softened by heating, subjected to combined loading conditions consisting of constant axial tension and cyclic torsion. The results obtained may be summarized as follows.

1. The cyclic-variation phase of isoclinic parameter lags behind the cyclic-variation phase of the direction of principal stress. The phase difference between these cyclic variations remains constant regardless of the number of cycles.
2. Isoclinic parameter has a value close to the direction of the principal stress within a range of a small number of cycles and decreases with an increase in the number of cycles. However, it does not approach the direction of principal strain but a value between the direction of the principal stress and that of the principal strain, with a certain constant ratio to them.