A new type of constitutive equation for nonlinear elastic bodies. Fitting with experimental data for rubber-like materials

In this article, we develop a new implicit constitutive relation, which is based on a thermodynamic foundation that relates the Hencky strain to the Cauchy stress, by assuming a structure for the Gibbs potential based on the Cauchy stress. We study the tension/compression of a cylinder, biaxial stretching of a thin plate and simple shear within the context of our constitutive relation. We then compare the predictions of the constitutive relation that we develop and that of Ogden’s constitutive relation with the experiments of Treloar concerning tension/compression of a cylinder, and we show that the predictions of our constitutive relation provide a better description than Ogden’s model, with fewer material moduli.

Dam Breach Simulation with the Material Point Method

Dam embankment breaches caused by overtopping or internal erosion can impact both life and property downstream. It is important to accurately predict the amount of erosion, peak discharge, and the resulting downstream flow. This paper presents a new model based on the material point method to simulate soil and water interaction and predict failure rate parameters. The model assumes that the dam consists of a homogeneous embankment constructed with cohesive soil, and water inflow is defined by a hydrograph using other readily available reach routing software. The model uses continuum mixture theory to describe each phase where each species individually obeys the conservation of mass and momentum. A two-grid material point method is used to discretize the governing equations. The Drucker–Prager plastic flow model, combined with a Hencky strain-based hyperelasticity model, is used to compute soil stress. Water is modeled as a weakly compressible fluid. Analysis of the model demonstrates the efficacy of our approach for existing examples of overtopping dam breach, dam failures, and collisions. Simulation results from our model are compared with a physical-based breach model, WinDAM C. The new model can capture water and soil interaction at a finer granularity than WinDAM C. The new model gradually removes the granular material during the breach process. The impact of material properties on the dam breach process is also analyzed.

FINITE DEFORMATIONS OF A TOROIDAL SHELL

The stress-strain state of a nonlinear elastic shell exposed to the internal pressure is considered. A surface of the shell is toroidal in shape in the initial state. The Lagrangian coordinates of the shell are assigned to a cylindrical system. The kinematic characteristics of the process are shown: a law of the motion of points, vectors of a material basis, a strain affinor and its polar decomposition, the Cauchy-Green strain measure and tensor, the Finger measure, and the “left” and the“right” Hencky strain tensors. Neglecting the shear components of the stress tensor, a constitutive relation is obtained as a quasilinear relation between true stress tensor and the Hencky corotation tensor. A system of equilibrium equations is presented in terms of physical components of the true stress tensor in the Lagrangian coordinates. Using the equilibrium equations and the incompressibility condition, a closed system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations is obtained to determine six unknown functions, depending on the angle indicating a position of the points along the cross-section in the initial state. The method of successive approximations is applied to estimate stress tensor components and to derive logarithms of the elongations of material fibers.

Structure, processing and performance of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (IUPAC Technical Report). Part 1: characterizing molecular weight

The aim of this project was to study the efficacy of current methods of quality control and quality assurance for ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) products, and find improvements where possible. Intrinsic viscosity (IV) tests were performed on three grades of polyethylene with weight average relative molar masses $̅{M}$w of about 6 × 105, 5.0 × 106 and 9.0 × 106. Results from three laboratories showed substantial scatter, probably because different methods were used to make and test solutions. Tensile tests were carried out to 600 % extension at 150 °C under both constant applied load and constant Hencky strain rate, on compression mouldings made by a leading manufacturer of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene. They gave low values of $̅{M}$w, suggesting incomplete entanglement at ‘grain boundaries’ between powder particles. Results from conventional melt-rheology tests are presented, and their relevance to quality control and assurance is discussed. Attempts to calculate molecular weights from these data met with limited success because of extended relaxation times. Suggestions are made for improving international standards for IV testing of UHMWPE, by investigating the various factors that can cause significant errors, and by introducing methods for checking the homogeneity (and hence validity) of the solutions tested. Part 2 addresses characterization of crystallinity and structure. Part 3 covers mechanical properties, and Part 4 focuses on the sporadic crack propagation behaviour exhibited by all three grades of UHMWPE in fatigue tests on 10 mm thick compact tension specimens.

Some Universal Solutions for a Class of Incompressible Elastic Body that is Not Green Elastic: The Case of Large Elastic Deformations

Summary Some universal solutions are studied for a new class of elastic bodies, wherein the Hencky strain tensor is assumed to be a function of the Kirchhoff stress tensor, considering in particular the case of assuming the bodies to be isotropic and incompressible. It is shown that the families of universal solutions found in the classical theory of nonlinear elasticity, are also universal solutions for this new type of constitutive equation.

The Physically Nonlinear Model of an Elastic Material and Its Identification

This work is devoted to the new variant of relations between the energetically conjugated Hencky strain tensor and corotational Kirchhoff stress tensor. The elastic energy is represented as a third-order polynomial of the Hencky tensor containing five material constants. Unlike the Almansi tensor in the Murnaghan model, the Hencky tensor allows assigning a clear physical meaning to material constants. Linear part of the constitutive relation represents the Hencky model and contains the bulk modulus and the shear modulus. The two extra constants express nonlinear effects at a purely volumetric strain and a purely isochoric strain, whereas the third constant takes into account the possible deviation from the similarity of the deviators of the Hencky stress and strain tensors. The resulting relations are naturally generalized for incompressible materials. In this case, the overall number of constants decreases from five to two. The designed test unit was used for a compression test of prismatic specimens made of incompressible material. The proposed version of the relations is in good agreement with the experimental data on the compression of rubber samples.

Finite Strain Homogenization Using a Reduced Basis and Efficient Sampling

The computational homogenization of hyperelastic solids in the geometrically nonlinear context has yet to be treated with sufficient efficiency in order to allow for real-world applications in true multiscale settings. This problem is addressed by a problem-specific surrogate model founded on a reduced basis approximation of the deformation gradient on the microscale. The setup phase is based upon a snapshot POD on deformation gradient fluctuations, in contrast to the widespread displacement-based approach. In order to reduce the computational offline costs, the space of relevant macroscopic stretch tensors is sampled efficiently by employing the Hencky strain. Numerical results show speed-up factors in the order of 5–100 and significantly improved robustness while retaining good accuracy. An open-source demonstrator tool with 50 lines of code emphasizes the simplicity and efficiency of the method.

A polyconvex extension of the logarithmic Hencky strain energy

Adapting a method introduced by Ball, Muite, Schryvers and Tirry, we construct a polyconvex isotropic energy function [Formula: see text] which is equal to the classical Hencky strain energy [Formula: see text] in a neighborhood of the identity matrix 𝟙; here, [Formula: see text] denotes the set of [Formula: see text]-matrices with positive determinant, [Formula: see text] denotes the deformation gradient, [Formula: see text] is the corresponding stretch tensor, [Formula: see text] is the principal matrix logarithm of [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] is the trace operator, [Formula: see text] is the Frobenius matrix norm and [Formula: see text] is the deviatoric part of [Formula: see text]. The extension can also be chosen to be coercive, in which case Ball’s classical theorems for the existence of energy minimizers under appropriate boundary conditions are immediately applicable. We also generalize the approach to energy functions [Formula: see text] in the so-called Valanis–Landel form [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] denote the singular values of [Formula: see text].

Macromolecular relaxation, strain, and extensibility determine elastocapillary thinning and extensional viscosity of polymer solutions

Delayed capillary break-up of viscoelastic filaments presents scientific and technical challenges relevant for drop formation, dispensing, and adhesion in industrial and biological applications. The flow kinematics are primarily dictated by the viscoelastic stresses contributed by the polymers that are stretched and oriented in a strong extensional flow field resulting from the streamwise gradients created by the capillarity-driven squeeze flow. After an initial inertiocapillary (IC) or viscocapillary (VC) regime, where elastic effects seem to play no role, the interplay of capillarity and viscoelasticity can lead to an elastocapillary (EC) response characterized by exponentially-slow thinning of neck radius (extensional relaxation time is determined from the delay constant). Less frequently, a terminal visco-elastocapillary (TVEC) response with linear decay in radius can be observed and used for measuring terminal, steady extensional viscosity. However, both IC/VC–EC and EC–TVEC transitions are inaccessible in devices that create stretched necks by applying a step strain to a liquid bridge (e.g., capillary breakup extensional rheometer). In this study, we use dripping-onto-substrate rheometry to obtain radius evolution data for unentangled polymer solutions. We deduce that the plots of transient extensional viscosity vs. Hencky strain (scaled by the respective values at the EC–TVEC transition) emulate the functional form of the birefringence–macromolecular strain relationship based on Peterlin’s theory. We quantify the duration and strain between the IC/VC–EC and the EC–TVEC transitions using measures we term elastocapillary span and elastocapillary strain increment and find both measures show values directly correlated with the corresponding variation in extensional relaxation time.

Slip-Spring and Kink Dynamics Models for Fast Extensional Flow of Entangled Polymeric Fluids

We combine a slip-spring model with an ‘entangled kink dynamics’ (EKD) model for strong uniaxial extensional flows (with Rouse Weissenberg number W i R ≫ 1 ) of long ( M w > 1 Mkg / mol for polystyrene) entangled polymers in solutions and melts. The slip-spring model captures the dynamics up to the formation of a ‘kinked’ or folded state, while the kink dynamics simulation tracks the dynamics from that point forward to complete extension. We show that a single-chain slip-spring model using affine motion of the slip-spring anchor points produces unrealistically high tension near the center of the chain once the Hencky strain exceeds around unity or so, exceeding the maximum tension that a chain entangled with a second chain is able to support. This unrealistic tension is alleviated by pairing the slip links on one chain with those on a second chain, and allowing some of the large tension on one of the two to be transferred to the second chain, producing non-affine motion of each. This explicit pairing of entanglements mimics the entanglement pairing also used in the EKD model, and allows the slip spring simulations to be carried out to strains high enough for the EKD model to become valid. We show that results nearly equivalent to those from paired chains are obtained in a single-chain slip-spring simulation by simply specifying that the tension in a slip spring cannot exceed the theoretical maximum value of ζ ′ ϵ ˙ L 2 / 8 where ζ ′ , ϵ ˙ and L are the friction per unit length, strain rate and contour length of the chain, respectively. The effects of constraint release (CR) and regeneration of entanglements is also studied and found to have little effect on the chain statistics up to the formation of the kinked state. The resulting hybrid model provides a fast, simple, simulation method to study the response of high molecular weight ( M w > 1 Mkg / mol ) polymers in fast flows ( W i R ≫ 1 ), where conventional simulation techniques are less applicable due to computational cost.