We consider a singularly-perturbed two-well problem in the context of planar geometrically linear elasticity to model a rectangular martensitic nucleus in an austenitic matrix. We derive the scaling regimes for the minimal energy in terms of the problem parameters, which represent the {shape} of the nucleus, the quotient of the elastic moduli of the two phases, the surface energy constant, and the volume fraction of the two martensitic variants. We identify several different scaling regimes, which are distinguished either by the exponents in the parameters, or by logarithmic corrections, for which we have matching upper and lower bounds.
Many biological and engineering materials have nonperiodic microstructures for which classical periodic homogenization results do not apply. Certain nonperiodic microstructures may be approximated by locally periodic microstructures for which homogenization techniques are available. Motivated by the consideration that such materials are often anisotropic and can posses residual stresses, a broad class of locally periodic microstructures is considered and the resulting effective macroscopic equations are derived. The effective residual stress and effective elasticity tensor are determined by so…
Deformation microstructure is studied for a 1D-shear problem in geometrically nonlinear Cosserat elasticity. Microstructure solutions are described analytically and numerically for zero characteristic length scale.
We study a simplified two-dimensional model for a cubic-to-orthorhombic phase transition occuring in certain shape-memory-alloys. In the low temperature regime the linear theory of elasticity predicts various possible patterns of martensite arrangements: Apart from the well known laminates this phase transition displays additional structures involving four martensitic variants -- so called crossing twins. Introducing a variational model including surface energy, we show that these structures are rigid under small energy perturbations. Combined with an upper bound construction this gives the op…
We consider a hierarchical nested microstructure, which also contains a point of singularity (disclination) at the origin, observed in lead orthovanadate. We show how to exactly compute the energy cost and associated displacement field within linearized elasticity by enforcing geometric compatibility of strains across interfaces of the three-phase mixture of distortions (variants) in the microstructure. We prove that the mechanical deformation is purely elastic and discuss the behavior of the system close to the origin.
In this article we deduce necessary and sufficient conditions for the presence of `Conti-type', highly symmetric, exactly-stress free constructions in the geometrically non-linear, planar $n$-well problem, generalising results of [CKZ17]. Passing to the limit $n\rightarrow \infty$, this allows us to treat solid crystals and nematic elastomer differential inclusions simultaneously. In particular, we recover and generalise (non-linear) planar tripole star type deformations which were experimentally observed in [MA80,MA80a,KK91]. Further we discuss the corresponding geometrically linearised probl…
The introduced notion of locally-periodic two-scale convergence allows to average a wider range of microstructures, compared to the periodic one. The compactness theorem for the locally-periodic two-scale convergence and the characterisation of the limit for a sequence bounded in $H^1(Ω)$ are proven. The underlying analysis comprises the approximation of functions, which periodicity with respect to the fast variable depends on the slow variable, by locally-periodic functions, periodic in subdomains smaller than the considered domain, but larger than the size of microscopic structures. The deve…
Since the seminal contribution of Geymonat, Müller, and Triantafyllidis, it is known that strong ellipticity is not necessarily conserved through periodic homogenization in linear elasticity. This phenomenon is related to microscopic buckling of composite materials. Consider a mixture of two isotropic phases which leads to loss of strong ellipticity when arranged in a laminate manner, as considered by Gutiérrez and by Briane and Francfort. In this contribution we prove that the laminate structure is essentially the only microstructure which leads to such a loss of strong ellipticity. We perfor…
We quantify the rigidity of branching microstructures in shape memory alloys undergoing cubic-to-tetragonal transformations in the geometrically linearized theory by making use of Tartar's H-measures. The main result is a $B^{2/3}_{1,\infty}$-estimate for the characteristic functions of twins, which heuristically suggests that the larger-scale interfaces can cluster on a set of Hausdorff-dimension $3-\frac{2}{3}$. We provide evidence indicating that the dimension is optimal. Furthermore, we get an essentially local lower bound for the blow-up behavior of the limiting energy density close to a …
In this paper, we consider weak solutions of the Euler-Lagrange equation to a variational energy functional modeling the geometrically nonlinear Cosserat micropolar elasticity of continua in dimension three, which is a system coupling between the Poisson equation and the equation of $p$-harmonic maps ($2\le p\le 3$). We show that if a weak solutions is stationary, then its singular set is discrete for $2<p<3$ and has zero $1$-dimensional Hausdorff measure for $p=2$. If, in addition, it is a stable-stationary weak solution, then it is regular everywhere when $p\in [2, \frac{32}{15}]$.
This study presents the analytical and finite element formulation of a geometrically nonlinear and fractional-order nonlocal model of an Euler-Bernoulli beam. The finite nonlocal strains in the Euler-Bernoulli beam are obtained from a frame-invariant and dimensionally consistent fractional-order (nonlocal) continuum formulation. The finite fractional strain theory provides a positive definite formulation that results in a mathematically well-posed formulation which is consistent across loading and boundary conditions. The governing equations and the corresponding boundary conditions of the geo…
We study dislocation networks in the plane using the vectorial phase-field model introduced by Ortiz and coworkers, in the limit of small lattice spacing. We show that, in a scaling regime where the total length of the dislocations is large, the phase field model reduces to a simpler model of the strain-gradient type. The limiting model contains a term describing the three-dimensional elastic energy and a strain-gradient term describing the energy of the geometrically necessary dislocations, characterized by the tangential gradient of the slip. The energy density appearing in the strain-gradie…
The zero and first order Gamma-limit of vanishing internal length scale are studied for the mechanical energy of a shear problem in geometrically nonlinear Cosserat elasticity. The convergence of the minimizers is shown and the limit functionals are characterized.
For homogeneous higher gradient elasticity models we discuss frame-indifference and isotropy requirements. To this end, we introduce the notions of local versus global SO(3)-invariance and identify frame-indifference (traditionally) with global left SO(3)-invariance and isotropy with global right SO(3)-invariance. For specific restricted representations, the energy may also be local left SO(3)-invariant as well as local right SO(3)-invariant. Then we turn to linear models and consider a consequence of frame-indifference together with isotropy in nonlinear elasticity and apply this joint invari…
Domain branching near the boundary appears in many singularly-perturbed models for microstructure in materials and was first demonstrated mathematically by Kohn and Müller for a scalar problem modeling the elastic behavior of shape-memory alloys. We study here a model for shape-memory alloys based on the full vectorial problem of nonlinear elasticity, including invariance under rotations, in the case of two wells in two dimensions. We show that, for two wells with two rank-one connections, the energy scales proportional to the power $2/3$ of the surface energy, in agreement with the scalar mod…
In this article we continue our study of higher Sobolev regularity of flexible convex integration solutions to differential inclusions arising from applications in materials sciences. We present a general framework yielding higher Sobolev regularity for Dirichlet problems with affine data in $\text{int}(K^{lc})$. This allows us to simultaneously deal with linear and nonlinear differential inclusion problems. We show that the derived higher integrability and differentiability exponent has a lower bound, which is independent of the position of the Dirichlet boundary data in $\text{int}(K^{lc})$.…
In this article we discuss higher Sobolev regularity of convex integration solutions for the geometrically non-linear two-well problem. More precisely, we construct solutions to the differential inclusion $\nabla u\in K$ subject to suitable affine boundary conditions for $ u$ with $$ K:= SO(2)\left[\begin{array}{ ccc } 1 & δ\\ 0 & 1 \end{array}\right] \cup SO(2)\left[\begin{array}{ ccc } 1 & -δ\\ 0 & 1 \end{array}\right] $$ such that the associated deformation gradients $\nabla u$ enjoy higher Sobolev regularity. This provides the first result in the modelling of phase transformations in shape…
In this paper we do a comparative presentation of the linear isotropic Cosserat elastic model from two perspectives: the classical Mindlin-Eringen-Nowacki description in terms of a microrotation vector and a new formulation in terms of a skew-symmetric matrix and a curvature energy in dislocation form. We provide the reader with an alternative representation of the energy for the isotropic Cosserat model to ease the comparison with the relaxed micromorphic model and the geometrically nonlinear Cosserat elastic model.
We study the homogenisation of geometrically nonlinear elastic composites with high contrast. The composites we analyse consist of a perforated matrix material, which we call the "stiff" material, and a "soft" material that fills the pores. We assume that the pores are of size $0<\varepsilon\ll 1$ and are periodically distributed with period $\varepsilon$. We also assume that the stiffness of the soft material degenerates with rate $\varepsilon^{2γ},$ $γ>0$, so that the contrast between the two materials becomes infinite as $\varepsilon\to 0$. We study the homogenisation limit $\varepsilon\to …
We present an extension of the Allen-Cahn/Cahn-Hilliard system which incorporates a geometrically linear ansatz for the elastic energy of the precipitates. The model contains both the elastic Allen-Cahn system and the elastic Cahn-Hilliard system as special cases and accounts for the microstructures on the microscopic scale. We prove the existence of weak solutions to the new model for a general class of energy functionals. We then give several examples of functionals that belong to this class. This includes the energy of geometrically linear elastic materials for D<3. Moreover we show this fo…
We analyze generic sequences for which the geometrically linear energy \[E_η(u,χ):= η^{-\frac{2}{3}}\int_{B_{0}(1)} \left| e(u)- \sum_{i=1}^3 χ_ie_i\right|^2 d x+η^\frac{1}{3} \sum_{i=1}^3 |Dχ_i|(B_{0}(1))\] remains bounded in the limit $η\to 0$. Here $ e(u) :=1/2(Du + Du^T)$ is the (linearized) strain of the displacement $u$, the strains $e_i$ correspond to the martensite strains of a shape memory alloy undergoing cubic-to-tetragonal transformations and $χ_i:B_{0}(1) \to \{0,1\}$ is the partition into phases. In this regime it is known that in addition to simple laminates also branched struct…
For minimizers in a geometrically nonlinear Cosserat model for micropolar elasticity of continua, we prove interior Hölder regularity, up to isolated singular points that may be possible if the exponent $p$ from the model is $2$ or in $(\frac{32}{15},3)$. The obstacle to full continuity turns out to be the existence of certain minimizing homogeneous $p$-harmonic maps to $S^3$. For those, we slightly improve existing regularity theorems in order to achieve our result on the Cosserat model.
We consider a single disclination in a thin elastic sheet of thickness $h$. We prove ansatz-free lower bounds for the free elastic energy in three different settings: First, for a geometrically fully non-linear plate model, second, for three-dimensional nonlinear elasticity, and third, for the Föppl-von Kármán plate theory. The lower bounds in the first and third result are optimal in the sense that we find upper bounds that are identical to the respective lower bounds in the leading order of $h$.
In this paper we consider the equilibrium problem in the relaxed linear model of micromorphic elastic materials. The basic kinematical fields of this extended continuum model are the displacement $u\in \mathbb{R}^3$ and the non-symmetric micro-distortion density tensor $P\in \mathbb{R}^{3\times 3}$. In this relaxed theory a symmetric force-stress tensor arises despite the presence of microstructure and the curvature contribution depends solely on the micro-dislocation tensor ${\rm Curl}\, P$. However, the relaxed model is able to fully describe rotations of the microstructure and to predict no…
We consider an infinite 3-dimensional elastic continuum whose material points experience no displacements, only rotations. This framework is a special case of the Cosserat theory of elasticity. Rotations of material points are described mathematically by attaching to each geometric point an orthonormal basis which gives a field of orthonormal bases called the coframe. As the dynamical variables (unknowns) of our theory we choose the coframe and a density. We write down the general dynamic variational functional for our rotational theory of elasticity, assuming our material to be physically lin…
We derive geometrically linearized theories for incompressible materials from nonlinear elasticity theory in the small displacement regime. Our nonlinear stored energy densities may vary on the same (small) length scale as the typical displacements. This allows for applications to multiwell energies as, e.g., encountered in martensitic phases of shape memory alloys and models for nematic elastomers. Under natural assumptions on the asymptotic behavior of such densities we prove Gamma-convergence of the properly rescaled nonlinear energy functionals to the relaxation of an effective model. The …
In materials that undergo martensitic phase transformation, macroscopic loading often leads to the creation and/or rearrangement of elastic domains. This paper considers an example {involving} a single-crystal slab made from two martensite variants. When the slab is made to bend, the two variants form a characteristic microstructure that we like to call ``twinning with variable volume fraction.'' Two 1996 papers by Chopra et. al. explored this example using bars made from InTl, providing considerable detail about the microstructures they observed. Here we offer an energy-minimization-based mod…
