Dramatically stiffer elastic composite materials due to a negative stiffness phase?

Composite materials of extremely high stiffness can be produced by employing one phase of negative stiffness. Negative stiffness entails a reversal of the usual codirectional relationship between force and displacement in deformed objects. Negative stiffness structures and materials are possible, but unstable by themselves. We argue here that composites made with a small volume fraction of negative stiffness inclusions can be stable and can have overall stiffness far higher than that of either constituent. This high composite stiffness is demonstrated via several exact solutions within linearized and also fully nonlinear elasticity, and via the overall modulus tensor estimate of a variational principle valid in this case. We provide an initial discussion of stability, and adduce experimental results which show extreme composite behavior in selected viscoelastic systems under sub-resonant sinusoidal load. Viscoelasticity is known to expand the space of stability in some cases. We have not yet proved that purely elastic composite materials of the types proposed and analyzed in this paper will be stable under static load. The concept of negative stiffness inclusions is buttressed by recent experimental studies illustrating related phenomena within the elasticity and viscoelasticity contexts.     

Dynamic stability of a propagating crack

In this work we investigate the stability of a straight two-dimensional dynamically propagating crack to small perturbation of its path. Willis and Movchan (J. Mech. Phys. Solids 43 (1995) 319; J. Mech. Phys. Solids 45 (1997) 591) constructed formulae for the perturbations of the stress intensity factors induced by a small three-dimensional dynamic perturbation of a nominally plane crack. Their solution is exploited here to derive equations for the in-plane and out-of-plane perturbations of the crack path making use of the Griffith fracture criterion and the principle of “local symmetry” (i.e the crack propagates so that local K_II=0). We consider a crack propagating in a body loaded by a pair of point body forces and subjected to a remote uniaxial stress, aligned with the direction of the unperturbed crack. We assume that the loading follows the crack as the crack advances and is such that the unperturbed crack is subjected to Mode I loading. We perform an analysis of the stability of the dynamic crack in a similar way as in earlier work (Obrezanova et al., J. Mech. Phys. Solids 50 (2002) 57) on the quasistatically advancing crack. We present numerical results illustrating the influence of the crack velocity on the crack stability. Numerical computations of the possible crack paths have been performed which show that at velocities of crack propagation exceeding about one-third of the speed of Rayleigh waves the crack may admit one or more oscillatory modes of instability.     

Kinetic wrinkling of an elastic film on a viscoelastic substrate

A compressed elastic film on a compliant substrate can form wrinkles. On an elastic substrate, equilibrium and energetics set the critical condition and select the wrinkle wavelength and amplitude. On a viscous substrate, wrinkle grows over time and the kinetics selects the fastest growing wavelength. More generally, on a viscoelastic substrate, both energetics and kinetics play important roles in determining the critical condition, the growth rate, and the wavelength. This paper studies the wrinkling process of an elastic film on a viscoelastic layer, which in turn lies on a rigid substrate. The film is elastic and modeled by the nonlinear von Karman plate theory. The substrate is linear viscoelastic with a relaxation modulus typical of a cross-linked polymer. Beyond a critical stress, the film wrinkles by the out-of-plane displacement but remains bonded to the substrate. This study considers plane strain wrinkling and neglects the in-plane displacement. A classification of the wrinkling behavior is made based on the critical conditions at the elastic limits, the glassy and rubbery states of the viscoelastic substrate. Linear perturbation analyses are conducted to reveal the kinetics of wrinkling in films subjected to intermediate and large compressive stresses. It is shown that, depending on the stress level, the growth of wrinkles at the initial stage can be exponential, accelerating, linear, or decelerating. In all cases, the wrinkle amplitude saturates at an equilibrium state after a long time. Subsequently, both amplitude and wavelength of the wrinkle evolve, but the process is kinetically constrained and slow compared to the initial growth.     

Self-sustained slip pulses of finite size between dissimilar materials

The problem of a steady-state slip pulse of finite size between dissimilar materials is studied. It is shown that for a Coulomb friction law, there is a continuous set of possible solutions for any slip propagation velocity and any slip length. These solutions are, however, nonphysical because they show a singular behaviour of the slip velocity at one extremity of the pulse, which implies a crack-like behaviour. In order to regularize these solutions, we introduce a modified friction law due to Prakash and Clifton (Experimental Techniques in the Dynamics of Deformable Solids, Vol. AMD-165, pp. 33-48; J. Tribol. 120 (1998) 97), which consists in introducing in the Coulomb friction law a relaxation time for the response of the shear stress to a sudden variation of the normal stress. Then, we show that even for a slip velocity-dependent characteristic time, the degeneracy of the solutions is not suppressed and a physical pulse is not selected. This result shows the absence of steady state self-healing pulses within the modified friction law and is consistent with recent finite-difference calculations (J. Geophys. Res. 107 (2002) 10).     

New exact results for the effective electric, elastic, piezoelectric and other properties of composite ellipsoid assemblages

In this paper we present a unified treatment of composite ellipsoid assemblages in the setting of uncoupled phenomena like conductivity and elasticity and coupled phenomena like thermoelectricity and piezomagnetoelectricity. The building block of this microgeometry is a confocal ellipsoidal particle consisting of a (possibly void) core and a coating. All space is filled up with such units which have different sizes but possess the same aspect ratios. The confocal ellipsoids may have the same orientation in space or may be randomly oriented. The resulting microgeometry simulates two-phase composites in which the reinforcing components are short fibers or elongated particles. Our main interest is in obtaining information of an exact nature on the effective moduli of this microgeometry whose effective tensor symmetry structure depends on the packing mode of the coated ellipsoids. This information will sometimes be complete like the full effective thermoelectric tensor of an assemblage which contains aligned ellipsoids in which the coating is isotropic and the core is arbitrarily anisotropic. In the majority of the cases however the maximum achievable exact information will be only partial and will appear in the form of certain exact relations between the effective moduli of the microgeometry. These exact relations are obtained from exact solutions for the fields in the microstructure for a certain set of loading conditions. In all the considered cases an isotropic coating can be combined with a fully arbitrary core. This covers the most important physical case of anisotropic fibers in an isotropic matrix. Allowing anisotropy in the coating requires the fulfillment of certain constraint conditions between its moduli. Even though in this case the presence of such constraint conditions may render the anisotropic coating material hypothetical, the value of the derived solutions remains since they still provide benchmark comparisons for approximate and numerical treatments. The remarkable feature of the general analysis which covers all treated uncoupled and coupled phenomena is that it is developed solely on the basis of potential solutions of the conduction problem in the same microgeometry.     

Dissipative interface waves and the transient response of a three-dimensional sliding interface with Coulomb friction

We investigate the linearized response of two elastic half-spaces sliding past one another with constant Coulomb friction to small three-dimensional perturbations. Starting with the assumption that friction always opposes slip velocity, we derive a set of linearized boundary conditions relating perturbations of shear traction to slip velocity. Friction introduces an effective viscosity transverse to the direction of the original sliding, but offers no additional resistance to slip aligned with the original sliding direction. The amplitude of transverse slip depends on a nondimensional parameter η=c_sτ₀/μv₀, where τ₀ is the initial shear stress, 2v₀ is the initial slip velocity, μ is the shear modulus, and c_s is the shear wave speed. As η→0, the transverse shear traction becomes negligible, and we find an azimuthally symmetric Rayleigh wave trapped along the interface. As η→∞, the inplane and antiplane wavesystems frictionally couple into an interface wave with a velocity that is directionally dependent, increasing from the Rayleigh speed in the direction of initial sliding up to the shear wave speed in the transverse direction. Except in these frictional limits and the specialization to two-dimensional inplane geometry, the interface waves are dissipative. In addition to forward and backward propagating interface waves, we find that for η>1, a third solution to the dispersion relation appears, corresponding to a damped standing wave mode. For large-amplitude perturbations, the interface becomes isotropically dissipative. The behavior resembles the frictionless response in the extremely strong perturbation limit, except that the waves are damped. We extend the linearized analysis by presenting analytical solutions for the transient response of the medium to both line and point sources on the interface. The resulting self-similar slip pulses consist of the interface waves and head waves, and help explain the transmission of forces across fracture surfaces. Furthermore, we suggest that the η→∞ limit describes the sliding interface behind the crack edge for shear fracture problems in which the absolute level of sliding friction is much larger than any interfacial stress changes.     

The elastic response of a cohesive aggregate—a discrete element model with coupled particle interaction

A model is presented for the deformation of a cohesive aggregate of elastic particles that incorporates two important effects of large-sized inter-particle junctions. A finite element model is used to derive a particle response rule, for both normal and tangential relative deformations between pairs of particles. This model agrees with the Hertzian contact theory for small junctions, and is valid for junctions as large as half the nominal particle size. Further, the aggregate model uses elastic superposition to account for the coupled force–displacement response due to the simultaneous displacement of all of the neighbors of each particle in the aggregate. A particle stiffness matrix is developed, relating the forces at each junction to the three displacement degrees of freedom at all of the neighboring-particle junctions. The particle response satisfies force and moment equilibrium, so that the model is properly posed to allow for rigid rotation of the particle without introducing rotational degrees of freedom. A computer-simulated sintering algorithm is used to generate a random particle packing, and the stiffness matrix is derived for each particle. The effective elastic response is then estimated using a mean field or affine displacement calculation, and is also found exactly by a discrete element model, solving for the equilibrium response of the aggregate to uniform-strain boundary conditions. Both the estimate and the exact solution compare favorably with experimental data for the bulk modulus of sintered alumina, whereas Hertzian contact-based models underestimate the modulus significantly. Poisson's ratio is, however, accurately determined only by the full equilibrium discrete element solution, and shown to depend significantly on whether or not rigid particle rotation is permitted in the model. Moreover, this discrete element model is sufficiently robust, so it can be applied to problems involving non-homogeneous deformations in such cohesive aggregates.     

Atomistic simulation of the structure and elastic properties of gold nanowires

We performed atomistic simulations to study the effect of free surfaces on the structure and elastic properties of gold nanowires aligned in the 〈100〉 and 〈111〉 crystallographic directions. Computationally, we formed a nanowire by assembling gold atoms into a long wire with free sides by putting them in their bulk fcc lattice positions. We then performed a static relaxation on the assemblage. The tensile surface stresses on the sides of the wire cause the wire to contract along the length with respect to the original fcc lattice, and we characterize this deformation in terms of an equilibrium strain versus the cross-sectional area. While the surface stress causes wires of both orientations and all sizes to increasingly contract with decreasing cross-sectional area, when the cross-sectional area of a 〈100〉 nanowire is less than , the wire undergoes a phase transformation from fcc to bct, and the equilibrium strain increases by an order of magnitude. We then applied a uniform uniaxial strain incrementally to 1.2% to the relaxed nanowires in a molecular statics framework. From the simulation results we computed the effective axial Young's modulus and Poisson's ratios of the nanowire as a function of cross-sectional area. We used two approaches to compute the effective elastic moduli, one based on a definition in terms of the strain derivative of the total energy and another in terms of the virial stress often used in atomistic simulations. Both give quantitatively similar results, showing an increase in Young's modulus with a decrease of cross-sectional area in the nanowires that do not undergo a phase transformation. Those that undergo a phase transformation experience an increase of about a factor of three of Young's modulus. The Poisson's ratio of the 〈100〉 wires that do not undergo a phase transformation show little change with the cross-sectional area. Those wires that undergo a phase transformation experience an increase of about 10% in Poisson's ratio. The 〈111〉 wires show, with a decrease of cross-sectional area, an increase in one of Poisson's ratios and small change in the other.     

Intersonic crack propagation in homogeneous media under shear-dominated loading: theoretical analysis

The mechanics of cohesive failure under mixed-mode loading is investigated for the case of a steadily propagating subsonic and intersonic dynamic crack subjected to a follower tensile and shear distributed load. The cohesive failure model chosen in this study is rate independent but accounts for the coupling between normal and tangential damage. Special emphasis is placed here on mixed-mode cases with predominantly shear loading. The analysis shows that the size of the mixed-mode cohesive zone is smaller than that obtained in the pure shear case. The relative extent of the shear and tensile cohesive damage zones depends on the crack speed and the mode mixity. In the intersonic regime, the failure process takes place exclusively in shear, even under remote mixed-mode loading conditions.     

An optimisation method for separating and rebuilding one-dimensional dispersive waves from multi-point measurements. Application to elastic or viscoelastic bars

When using a classical SHPB (split Hopkinson pressure bar) set-up, the useful measuring time is limited by the length of the bars, so that the maximum strain which can be measured in material testing applications is also limited. In this paper, a new method with no time limits is presented for measuring the force and displacement at any station on a bar from strain or velocity measurements performed at various places on the bar. The method takes the wave dispersion into account, as must inevitably be done when making long time measurements. It can be applied to one-dimensional and single-mode waves of all kinds propagating through a medium (flexural waves in beams, acoustic waves in wave guides, etc.). With bars of usual sizes, the measuring time can be up to 50 times longer than the time available with classical methods. An analysis of the sensitivity of the results to the accuracy of the experimental data and to the quality of the wave propagation modelling was also carried out. Experimental results are given which show the efficiency of the method.     

Dynamic stability of externally pressurized elastic rings subjected to high rates of loading

Of interest here is the influence of loading rate on the stability of structures where inertia is taken into account, with particular attention to the comparison between static and dynamic buckling. This work shows the importance of studying stability via perturbations of the initial conditions, since a finite velocity governs the propagation of disturbances. The method of modal analysis that determines the fastest growing wavelength, currently used in the literature to analyze dynamic stability problems, is meaningful only for cases where the velocity of the perfect structure is significantly lower than the associated wave propagation speeds.     

Buckling of nano-fibre reinforced composites: a re-examination of elastic buckling

Elastic buckling of layered/fibre reinforced composites is investigated. Assuming the existence of both shear and transverse modes of failure, the fibre is analysed as a layer embedded in a matrix. Interacting stresses, acting at the interfaces are determined from an exact derived stress field in the matrix. It is shown that buckling can occur only in the shear buckling mode and that the transverse buckling mode is spurious. As opposed to the well known Rosen shear buckling mode solution (predicated on an infinite buckling wavelength), shear buckling is shown to exist under two régimes: buckling of dilute composites with finite wavelengths and buckling of non-dilute composites with infinite wavelengths. Based on the analysis, a model is constructed which defines the fibre concentration at which the transition between the two régimes occurs. The buckling strains are shown to be (approximately) constant for dilute composites and, in the case of very stiff fibres, to have realistic values compatible with elastic behaviour. For the case of non-dilute composites, the strains are found to be in agreement with those given by the Rosen shear buckling solution. Numerical results for the buckling strains and stresses are presented and compared with the Rosen solution. These reveal that the Rosen solution is valid only for the case of non-dilute composites. The investigation demonstrates that elastic buckling may be a dominant failure mechanism of composites consisting of very stiff fibres fabricated in the framework of nano-technology.     

Stability of an advancing crack to small perturbation of its path

In this work we investigate the stability of a nominally straight two-dimensional quasistatically growing crack to a small perturbation of its path. Formulae for perturbations of stress intensity factors induced by slight deviation of the crack trajectory were developed by Movchan et al. (Int. J. Solids Struct. 35, 3419) Their solution is exploited to derive an equation for the perturbation of the crack path on the assumption that the crack advances in pure “opening” mode (i.e. local K_II=0). Various types of loading conditions are considered, including a cracked body loaded by a pair of point body forces and a crack whose faces are subjected to given tractions acting in the direction normal to the crack boundary. The body is also subjected to a remotely maintained uniaxial stress, aligned with the direction of the unperturbed crack. The loading is assumed to advance as the crack advances, to maintain the critical value of Mode I stress intensity factor. Numerical computations of possible crack paths have been performed, extending results on crack stability obtained by Cotterell and Rice (Int. J. Fract. 16, 155). The results show that in the case of loading by point body forces the stability of the crack path depends on the positions of the points of application of the applied forces and the magnitude of the applied stress acting parallel to the crack. There exists a critical value of this stress such that the crack path is stable for values less than critical and unstable otherwise. It is shown that the crack is always unstable in the case of point force tractions applied normal to the crack faces.     

Contact with friction of a rigid cylinder with an elastic half-space

An exact solution to the problem of indentation with friction of a rigid cylinder into an elastic half-space is presented. The corresponding boundary-value problem is formulated in planar bipolar coordinates, and reduced to a singular integral equation with respect to the unknown normal stress in the slip zones. An exact analytical solution of this equation is constructed using the Wiener-Hopf technique, which allowed for a detailed analysis of the contact stresses, strain, displacement, and relative slip zone sizes. Also, a simple analytical solution is furnished in the limiting case of full stick between the cylinder and half-space.     

Plane strain dynamics of elastic solids with intrinsic boundary elasticity, with application to surface wave propagation

In this paper, in a development of the static theory derived by Steigmann and Ogden (Proc. Roy. Soc. London A 453 (1997) 853), we establish the equations of motion for a non-linearly elastic body in plane strain with an elastic surface coating on part or all of its boundary. The equations of (linearized) incremental motions superposed on a finite static deformation are then obtained and applied to the problem of (time-harmonic) surface wave propagation on a pre-stressed incompressible isotropic elastic half-space with a thin coating on its plane boundary. The secular equation for (dispersive) wave speeds is then obtained in respect of a general form of incompressible isotropic elastic strain-energy function for the bulk material and a general energy function for the coating material. Specialization of the form of strain-energy function enables the secular equation to be cast as a quartic equation and we therefore focus on this for illustrative purposes. An explicit form for the secular equation is thereby obtained. This involves a number of material parameters, including residual stress and moment in the properties of the coating. It is shown how this equation relates to previous work on waves in a half-space with an overlying thin layer set in the classical theory of isotropic elasticity and, in particular, the significant effect of omission of the rotatory inertia term, even at small wave numbers, is emphasized. Corresponding results for a membrane-type coating, for which the bending moment, inertia and residual moment terms are absent, are also obtained. Asymptotic formulas for the wave speed at large wave number (high frequency) are derived and it is shown how these results influence the character of the wave speed throughout the range of wave number values. A bifurcation criterion is obtained from the secular equation by setting the wave speed to zero, thereby generalizing the bifurcation results of Steigmann and Ogden (Proc. Roy. Soc. London A 453 (1997) 853) to the situation in which residual stress and moment are present in the coating. Numerical results which show the dependence of the wave speed on the various material parameters and the finite deformation are then described graphically. In particular, features which differ from those arising in the classical theory are highlighted.     

Two exact micromechanics-based nonlocal constitutive equations for random linear elastic composite materials

A Hashin-Shtrikman-Willis variational principle is employed to derive two exact micromechanics-based nonlocal constitutive equations relating ensemble averages of stress and strain for two-phase, and also many types of multi-phase, random linear elastic composite materials. By exact is meant that the constitutive equations employ the complete spatially-varying ensemble-average strain field, not gradient approximations to it as were employed in the previous, related work of Drugan and Willis (J. Mech. Phys. Solids 44 (1996) 497) and Drugan (J. Mech. Phys. Solids 48 (2000) 1359) (and in other, more phenomenological works). Thus, the nonlocal constitutive equations obtained here are valid for arbitrary ensemble-average strain fields, not restricted to slowly-varying ones as is the case for gradient-approximate nonlocal constitutive equations. One approach presented shows how to solve the integral equations arising from the variational principle directly and exactly, for a special, physically reasonable choice of the homogeneous comparison material. The resulting nonlocal constitutive equation is applicable to composites of arbitrary anisotropy, and arbitrary phase contrast and volume fraction. One exact nonlocal constitutive equation derived using this approach is valid for two-phase composites having any statistically uniform distribution of phases, accounting for up through two-point statistics and arbitrary phase shape. It is also shown that the same approach can be used to derive exact nonlocal constitutive equations for a large class of composites comprised of more than two phases, still permitting arbitrary elastic anisotropy. The second approach presented employs three-dimensional Fourier transforms, resulting in a nonlocal constitutive equation valid for arbitrary choices of the comparison modulus for isotropic composites. This approach is based on use of the general representation of an isotropic fourth-rank tensor function of a vector variable, and its inverse. The exact nonlocal constitutive equations derived from these two approaches are applied to some example cases, directly rationalizing some recently-obtained numerical simulation results and assessing the accuracy of previous results based on gradient-approximate nonlocal constitutive equations.     

Green's function for SH-waves in a cylindrically monoclinic material

Green's function for SH-waves in a cylindrically monoclinic material is considered for impulsive and time-harmonic sources. Closed form expressions for the Green's function are derived for a few limited values of anisotropic parameters. A very interesting time development of the wave front shape is illustrated and the wave front singularity is discussed for the transient SH-wave. Contours of the displacement amplitude for the time-harmonic wave are also shown.     

Sudden deceleration or acceleration of an intersonic shear crack

Sudden jumps in the crack tip velocity were revealed by numerical simulation (in both continuum/cohesive element and molecular dynamics approaches) and experiments for rapid shear cracking. The cracking velocity may accelerate from a sub-Rayleigh speed to the intersonic range, or from an intersonic speed to a higher one, when the reflected impact wave reloads the crack tip. On the other hand, the cracking velocity may decelerate from an intersonic speed to a lower one or recede to the sub-Rayleigh range when the fracture driving force declines. The velocity change encountered during intersonic cracking plays a different role from that in the acceleration or deceleration of a subsonic crack. A crack propagating at an intersonic speed would leave a shear wave trailing behind. When the crack decelerates or accelerates, the effect of the trailing wave will lead to a transition period from one steady-state solution of crack tip singularity to another. This investigation aims at quantifying these processes. The full field solution of an intersonic mode II crack whose speed changed suddenly from one velocity (intersonic or subsonic) to another (intersonic or subsonic) is given in closed form. The solution is facilitated via superposing a series of propagating crack problems that are loaded by dislocations to seal the unwanted crack-face sliding or by concentrated forces moving at various speeds to negate the crack-face traction. In contrast to the subsonic solution, the results in the intersonic case indicate that the elastic fields around the crack tip depend on the deceleration or acceleration history that is traced back over a long time. Singularity matching dictates the jump that may actually take place.     

Analysis of material instabilities in inelastic solids by incremental energy minimization and relaxation methods: evolving deformation microstructures in finite plasticity

We propose an approach to the definition and analysis of material instabilities in rate-independent standard dissipative solids at finite strains based on finite-step-sized incremental energy minimization principles. The point of departure is a recently developed constitutive minimization principle for standard dissipative materials that optimizes a generalized incremental work function with respect to the internal variables. In an incremental setting at finite time steps this variational problem defines a quasi-hyperelastic stress potential. The existence of this potential allows to be recast a typical incremental boundary-value problem of quasi-static inelasticity into a principle of minimum incremental energy for standard dissipative solids. Mathematical existence theorems for sufficiently regular minimizers then induce a definition of the material stability of the inelastic material response in terms of the sequentially weakly lower semicontinuity of the incremental variational functional. As a consequence, the incremental material stability of standard dissipative solids may be defined in terms of the quasi-convexity or the rank-one convexity of the incremental stress potential. This global definition includes the classical local Hadamard condition but is more general. Furthermore, the variational setting opens up the possibility to analyze the post-critical development of deformation microstructures in non-stable inelastic materials based on energy relaxation methods. We outline minimization principles of quasi- and rank-one convexifications of incremental non-convex stress potentials for standard dissipative solids. The general concepts are applied to the analysis of evolving deformation microstructures in single-slip plasticity. For this canonical model problem, we outline details of the constitutive variational formulation and develop numerical and semi-analytical solution methods for a first-level rank-one convexification. A set of representative numerical investigations analyze the development of deformation microstructures in the form of rank-one laminates in single slip plasticity for homogeneous macro-deformation modes as well as inhomogeneous macroscopic boundary-value problems. The well-posedness of the relaxed variational formulation is indicated by an independence of typical finite element solutions on the mesh-size.     

The influence of particle fluctuations on the average rotation in an idealized granular material

Granular materials are a simple example of a Cosserat continuum in that the average particle rotations may differ from the rotation of the average deformation. In the absence of couple stress, this difference insures that the stress is symmetric. This has been shown in theories that assume that the displacement at particle contacts is given by the average deformation and spin. Here, we indicate how the difference between the average rotation of the particles and the average rotation of the deformation can be determined when fluctuations in particle displacements and rotations satisfy local force and moment equilibria in a random aggregate of identical spheres. The predictions based on this model are in better agreement with numerical simulation than that given by the simple average strain theory.