Determining the Mie potential parameters using Poisson’s ratio

The known value of Poisson’s ratio specifying the relation between the strains along the principal directions in the case of uniaxial strain is used to propose an approach to derive an equation relating this ratio to the exponents of the Mie pair potential. An example of determining one of these exponents is discussed when the other exponent is given.     

Kh. A. Rakhmatulin’s scientific legacy in the field of mechanics of deformable rigid bodies

Kh. A. Rakhmatulin’s scientific activity was aimed at solving the most important scientific and technical problems encountered by the country. Khalil Akhmetovich was a unique combination of a theorist and an experimenter, an engineer and an inventor, a talented teacher and a scientific research manager.     

On Saint-Venant’s principle in the dynamics of elastic beams

In dynamics, Saint-Venant’s principle of exponential decay of stress resulting from a self-equilibrating load is not valid. For a beam type structure, a self-equilibrated load may penetrate well inside the beam. Although this effect has been known for a long time, at least since Lamb’s paper [Proc. Roy. Soc. Lon. Ser. A 93 (1916) 114], it was not clear how to characterize it quantitatively. In this paper we propose a “probabilistic approach” to evaluate the magnitude of the penetrating stress state. The key point is that, in engineering problems, the distribution of the self-equilibrated load is usually not known. By assigning to the self-equilibrated load some probabilistic measure one can find probabilistic characteristics of the penetrating stress state. We develop this reasoning for the simplest case: longitudinal vibrations of a two-dimensional semi-infinite, elastic isotropic homogeneous strip, excited by a periodic load at the end. We show the frequency range where Saint-Venant’s principle can be used with good accuracy, and thus, one-dimensional classical beam theory still can be applied. We characterize also the increase in this range which is achieved in the refined plate theory proposed by Berdichevsky and Le [J. Appl. Math. Mech. (PMM) 42 (1) (1978) 140].     

Galin’s problem for a spatial elastic wedge

We study a three-dimensional contact problem on the indentation of an elliptic punch into a face of a linearly elastic wedge. The wedge is characterized by two parameters of elasticity and its edge is subjected to the action of an additional concentrated force. The other face wedge is free from stresses. The problem is reduced to an integral equation for the contact pressure. An asymptotic solution of this equation is obtained which is effective for a given contact region fairly remote from the edge. Calculations are performed that allow one to evaluate the effect of a force applied outside the contact region on the contact pressure distribution. The problem under study is a generalization of L. A. Galin’s problem on a force applied outside a circular punch on an elastic half-space [1, 2]. In a special case of a wedge with an opening angle of 180° and zero contact ellipse eccentricity, the obtained asymptotic relation coincides with the expansion of Galin’s exact solution in a series. Problems of indentation of an elliptic punch into a spatial wedge with the face not loaded outside the contact region have been studied previously. For example, the paper [3] dealt with the case of a known contact region (asymptotic method) and the paper [4] considered the case of an unknown contact region (numerical method). The solution of Galin’s problem allowed the authors of [2] to reduce the contact problem on the interaction of several punches applied to a half-space to a system of Fredholm integral equations of the second kind (Andreikin-Panasyuk method). A topical direction in contact mechanics is the model of discrete contact as well as related problems on the interaction of several punches [2, 5–8]. The interaction of several punches applied to a face of a wedge can be treated in a similar manner and an asymptotic solution can be obtained for the case where a concentrated force is applied at an arbitrary point of this face beyond the contact region rather than on the edge.     

Planar isotropic structures with negative Poisson’s ratio

A new design principle is suggested for constructing auxetic structures – the structures that exhibit negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) at macroscopic level. We propose 2D assemblies of identical units made of a flexible frame with a sufficiently rigid reinforcing core at the centre. The core increases the frame resistance to the tangential movement thus ensuring high shear stiffness, whereas the normal stiffness is low being controlled by the local bending response of the frame. The structures considered have hexagonal symmetry, which delivers macroscopically isotropic elastic properties in the plane perpendicular to the axis of the symmetry. We determine the macroscopic Poisson’s ratio as a ratio of corresponding relative displacements computed using the direct microstructural approach. It is demonstrated that the proposed design can produce a macroscopically isotropic system with NPR close to the lower bound of ?1. We also developed a 2D elastic Cosserat continuum model, which represents the microstructure as a regular assembly of rigid particles connected by elastic springs. The comparison of values of NPRs computed using both structural models and the continuum approach shows that the continuum model gives a healthy balance between the simplicity and accuracy and can be used as a simple tool for design of auxetics.     

Resonant-Based Identification of the Poisson’s Ratio of Orthotropic Materials

The resonant-based identification of the in-plane elastic properties of orthotropic materials implies the estimation of four principal elastic parameters: E ₁ , E ₂ , G ₁₂ , and ν ₁₂ . The two elastic moduli and the shear modulus can easily be derived from the resonant frequencies of the flexural and torsional vibration modes, respectively. The identification of the Poisson’s ratio, however, is much more challenging, since most frequencies are not sufficiently sensitive to it. The present work addresses this problem by determining the test specimen specifications that create the optimal conditions for the identification of the Poisson’s ratio. Two methods are suggested for the determination of the Poisson’s ratio of orthotropic materials: the first employs the resonant frequencies of a plate-shaped specimen, while the second uses the resonant frequencies of a set of beam-shaped specimens. Both methods are experimentally validated using a stainless steel sheet.     

Rayleigh and Love surface waves in isotropic media with negative Poisson’s ratio

The behavior of Rayleigh surface waves and the first mode of the Love waves in isotropic media with positive and negative Poisson’s ratio is compared. It is shown that the Rayleigh wave velocity increases with decreasing Poisson’s ratio, and it increases especially rapidly for negative Poisson’s ratios less than ?0.75. It is demonstrated that, for positive Poisson’s ratios, the vertical component of the Rayleigh wave displacements decays with depth after some initial increase, while for negative Poisson’s ratios, there is a monotone decrease. The Rayleigh waves are characterized by elliptic trajectories of the particle motion with the change of the rotation direction at critical depths and by the linear vertical polarization at these depths. It is found that the elliptic orbits are less elongated and the critical depths are greater for negative Poisson’s ratios. It is shown that the stress distribution in the Rayleighwaves varies nonmonotonically with the dimensionless depth as (positive or negative) Poisson’s ratio varies. The stresses increase strongly only as Poisson’s ratio tends to?1. It is shown that, in the case of an incompressible thin covering layer, the velocity of the first mode of the Love waves strongly increases for negative Poisson’s ratios of the half-space material. If the thickness of the incompressible layer is large, then the wave very weakly penetrates into the halfspace for any value of its Poisson’s ratio. For negative Poisson’s ratios, the Love wave in a layer and a half-space is mainly localized in the covering layer for any values of its thickness and weakly penetrates into the half-space. For the first mode of the Love waves, it was discovered that there is a strong increase in the maximum of one of the shear stresses on the interface between the covering layer and the half-space as Poisson’s ratios of both materials decrease. For the other shear stress, there is a stress jump on the interface and a more complicated dependence of the stress on Poisson’s ratio on both sides of the interface.     

A new constitutive equation for solid propellant with the effects of aging and viscoelastic Poisson’s ratio

A new constitutive equation for solid propellant with the effects of aging and viscoelastic Poisson’s ratio is proposed. Effects of thermo-oxidative aging and viscoelastic Poisson’s ratio are considered in this comprehensive constitutive equation with two sets of reduced time system coping with the time and temperature dependence. In order to simulate the single and combined effects of aging and viscoelastic Poisson’s ratio, constitutive equation is rewritten into an incremental form and implemented in the user subroutine UMAT at the platform of finite element code ABAQUS. Detailed procedure for acquiring the parameters in constitutive equation is introduced and conducted for the subsequent applied analysis. Two typical loading cases during the service life of solid rocket motor and four sets of combined constitutive models are simulated. Von Mises strain and stress distribution and their changes versus time are utilized as the main analysis index. The results show that the effects of aging and viscoelastic Poisson’s ratio or their combinations will improve or decrease the level and change the distribution of Von Mises strain and stress in varying degrees.     

FE analysis of the in-plane mechanical properties of a novel Voronoi-type lattice with positive and negative Poisson’s ratio configurations

This work presents a novel formulation for a Voronoi-type cellular material with in-plane anisotropic behaviour, showing global positive and negative Poisson’s ratio effects under uniaxial tensile loading. The effects of the cell geometry and relative density over the global stiffness, equivalent in-plane Poisson’s ratios and shear modulus of the Voronoi-type structure are evaluated with a parametric analysis. Empirical formulas are identified to reproduce the mechanical trends of the equivalent homogeneous orthotropic material representing the Voronoi-type structure and its geometry parameters.     

Cerruti’s treatment of linear elastic trusses

This paper presents the analysis of linear elastic trusses proposed by Valentino Cerruti in his graduation thesis. While Cerruti is famous among rational mechanicians, very little is known on this work of his. We will consider the work in some detail, putting into evidence the main subjects dealt with by the author: redundant trusses and uniform resistance. We will also provide a comparison with his contemporaries and some critical comments.     

A generalization of Prandtl’s and Spencer’s solutions on axisymmetric viscous flow

New analytical solutions for axisymmetric deformation of a viscous hollow circular cylinder on a rigid fibre are given. One of the solutions generalizes the famous Prandtl’s solution for compression of a rigid perfectly plastic layer between two rough, parallel plates and the other is a modification of Spencer’s solution for compression of an axisymmetric rigid perfectly plastic layer on a rigid fibre. All equations are satisfied exactly whereas some boundary conditions are approximated in a standard manner. Special attention is devoted to frictional interface conditions since these conditions result in additional limitations of the applicability of the solution when compared to that based on a rigid perfectly plastic models. In particular, difficulties with the convergence of numerical solutions under certain conditions can be explained with the use of results obtained. Therefore, the solutions can serve as benchmark problems for verifying numerical codes. The solutions are also adopted to predict the brittle fracture of fibres by means of an approach used in previous studies and confirmed by experiment.     

Analysis of scattering waves in an elastic layered medium by means of the complete eigenfunction expansion form of the Green’s function

A scattering problem due to an object and a plane incident wave in an elastic layered half space is presented in this paper. The complete eigenfunction expansion form of the Green’s function developed by the author and the boundary integral equation method are introduced into the analysis. First, the complete eigenfunction expansion form of the Green’s function is investigated for its application to the scattering problem. A comprehensive explanation is also given for the fact that the complex Rayleigh wave modes exhibit standing waves. Next, a method for the analysis of scattering waves by means of the Green’s function is presented. The advantage of the present method is that the formulation itself is independent of the number of layers and the scattering waves can be decomposed into the modes for the spectra defined for the layered medium. Several numerical calculations are performed to examine the efficiency of the present method as well as the properties of the scattering waves. According to the numerical results, the complete eigenfunction expansion form of the Green’s function provides accurate values for application to a boundary element analysis. The spectral structure and radiation patterns of the scattering wave are presented and investigated. The differences in directionality can be found from the radiation patterns of the scattering waves decomposed into the modes for the spectra.     

Geometry of constraint manifolds and wave propagation in internally constrained elastic bodies

The implications of the non-Euclidean structure of constraint manifolds on differentiation of the stress in internally constrained elastic bodies are examined, and the equations governing propagation of acceleration waves in such bodies are deduced differentiating the reactive stress consistently with the assumption that it does no work in any admissible motion. This yields a treatment of the subject in which the presence of internal constraints imposes restrictions on the set of possible amplitudes of waves but the condition for local existence of waves, that amplitudes must satisfy, is of the same type as that for bodies free from internal constraints, in the sense that it depends on the properties of the response map of the material and is independent of reactive stress.     

Local existence for Frémond’s model of damage in elastic materials

We consider a dissipative model recently proposed by M. Frémond to describe the evolution of damage in elastic materials. The corresponding PDEs system consists of an elliptic equation for the displacements with a degenerating elastic coefficient coupled with a variational dissipative inclusion governing the evolution of damage. We prove a local-in-time existence and uniqueness result for an associated initial and boundary value problem, namely considering the evolution in some subinterval where the damage is not complete. The existence result is obtained by a truncation technique combined with suitable a priori estimates. Finally, we give an analogous local-in-time existence and uniqueness result for the case in which we introduce viscosity into the relation for macroscopic displacements such that the macroscopic equilibrium equation is of parabolic type.Received: 31 July 2002, Accepted: 9 August 2003, Published online: 21 November 2003Correspondence to: E. Bonetti     

Influence of an elastic end support on the dynamic stability of Beck׳s column with multiple weak sections

Recent investigations have shown that the presence of weak cross sections can deeply modify flutter and divergence instability of a cantilever beam-column. Position, intensity of weakness and degree of non-conservativeness not only can alter the value of the critical load of the healthy column but can also produce a modification of the type of instability. In this paper, issues involved in the influence of an elastic end support on flutter and buckling instability of the Beck׳s column in presence of an arbitrary number of weak sections is investigated. In the literature, a numerical study, restricted to the case of a single weak section only, has been presented. The study here proposed has been motivated by an extension to the case of multiple weak sections by means of a model that does not require continuity conditions to be enforced. On the other hand, the latter extension has led to a surprising contradiction of the results previously divulgated for the propped Beck׳s column with a single weak section.The exact solution, in terms of mode shapes and characteristic eigen-value equation of the weakened propped cantilever has been obtained in an explicit suitable form, through the use of generalised functions. The extensive numerical applications aim at the investigation of the effect of different debilitation scenarios in the flutter and buckling instability of the propped cantilever. In particular, the results relative to the case of single-weak section propped column, already investigated in the literature, are discussed in this work and they are shown that do not match those obtained by other authors. The latter incongruence is duly highlighted and discussed to infer the specific motivation.     

Effect of viscosity on the current layers emerging upon propagation of the Alfvén pulse in a hyperbolic magnetic field

The propagation of the Alfvén pulse in the vicinity of the X-point in the presence of viscosity is studied for the first time. It is shown that, in contrast to the case of magnetosonic perturbation, where the dynamic viscosity η (the point is that we are dealing with dimensionless quantities), which is small compared to the magnetic plasma viscosity ν, does not affect the flow, this influence is of primary importance in the Alfvén case. The magnitude of the steady-state current density is proportional to (vνη)^-1/4. It is also shown that at large times the distribution of the z-component of a magnetic field that is close to the distribution obtained in solving a linear problem is established in this significantly nonlinear problem. The effect of the heat conduction on this process is studied. Institute of Computational Technologies, Siberian Division, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 40, No. 6, pp. 11–16, November–December, 1999.     

Generation of a magnetic field in the shear deformation region of a conducting material upon high–velocity penetration

It is shown that when a high–velocity impactor penetrates into a conducting target with a transverse magnetic field, conditions for considerable field amplification are produced in the shear deformation region on the lateral surface of the impactor. Field generation in a conducting medium deformed in shear is considered within the framework of a plane one–dimensional problem of magnetohydrodynamics. The results obtained indicate that along the boundary of the cavity produced by the impactor in the target with a magnetic field, a thin layer with a very high field intensity (about 100 T) is formed. The possibility of explosion of this layer due to the magnetic pressure acting in it is analyzed.     

Impact of the interplanetary magnetic field on thewave flow pattern in the neighborhood of the Earth’s bow shock under sharp variations in the solar wind dynamic pressure

The impact of the interplanetary magnetic field on transformation and disintegration of the Earth’s bow shock into a system of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) shock waves, rotational discontinuities and rarefaction waves under the action of abrupt variations in the solar wind dynamic pressure is simulated in the three-dimensional non-plane-polarized formulation within the framework of the ideal magnetohydrodynamic model using the solution of the MHD Riemann problem of breakdown of an arbitrary discontinuity. This discontinuity arises when a contact discontinuity, on which the solar wind density increases or decreases suddenly and which travels together with the solar wind, impinges on the Earth’s bow shock and propagates along its surface. The interaction pattern is constructed in the quasisteady- state formulation as a mosaic of exact solutions obtained on computer using an original MHD Riemann solver. The wave flow patterns are found for all elements of the surface of the bow shock as functions of their latitude and longitude for various jumps in the density on the contact discontinuity and characteristics parameters of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field at the Earth’s orbit. It is found that when the solar wind dynamic pressure increases, a fast MHD shock wave, that first penetrates into the magnetosheath, is always formed. When the solar wind dynamic pressure decreases, the influence of the interplanetary magnetic field can lead to the development of the leading fast MHD shock wave in certain zones on the surface of the Earth’s bow shock. The solution obtained can be used to interpret measurements on spacecraft in the solar wind at the libration point and in the neighborhood of the Earth’s magnetosphere.     

Evaluation of the effective elastic moduli of tetragonal fiber-reinforced composites based on Maxwell’s concept of equivalent inhomogeneity

Maxwell’s concept of an equivalent inhomogeneity is employed for evaluating the effective elastic properties of tetragonal, fiber-reinforced, unidirectional composites with isotropic phases. The microstructure induced anisotropic effective elastic properties of the material are obtained by comparing the far-field solutions for the problem of a finite cluster of isotropic, circular cylindrical fibers embedded in an infinite isotropic matrix with that for the problem of a single, tetragonal, circular cylindrical equivalent inhomogeneity embedded in the same isotropic matrix. The former solutions precisely account for the interactions between all fibers in the cluster and for their geometrical arrangement. The solutions to several example problems that involve periodic (square arrays) composites demonstrate that the approach adequately captures microstructure induced anisotropy of the materials and provides reasonably accurate estimates of their effective elastic properties.     

Thermoelastostatic equilibrium of a spatial quadrant: Green’s function and solution in integrals

In this study, a new Green??s function and a new Green-type integral formula for a 3D boundary value problem (BVP) in thermoelastostatics for a quarter-space are derived in closed form. On the boundary half-planes, twice mixed homogeneous mechanical boundary conditions are given. One boundary half-plane is free of loadings and the normal displacements and the tangential stresses are zero on the other one. The thermoelastic displacements are subjected by a heat source applied in the inner points of the quarter-space and by mixed non-homogeneous boundary heat conditions. On one of the boundary half-plane, the temperature is prescribed and the heat flux is given on the other one. When the thermoelastic Green??s function is derived, the thermoelastic displacements are generated by an inner unit point heat source, described by ??-Dirac??s function. All results are obtained in elementary functions that are formulated in a special theorem. As a particular case, when one of the boundary half-plane of the quarter-space is placed at infinity, we obtain the respective results for half-space. Exact solutions in elementary functions for two particular BVPs for a thermoelastic quarter-space and their graphical presentations are included. They demonstrate how to apply the obtained Green-type integral formula as well as the derived influence functions of an inner unit point body force on volume dilatation to solve particular BVPs of thermoelasticity. In addition, advantages of the obtained results and possibilities of the proposed method to derive new Green??s functions and new Green-type integral formulae not for quarter-space only, but also for any canonical Cartesian domain are also discussed.