3/16/22, 4:07 PM EN224: Linear Elasticity
EN224:
Linear Elasticity
Division of
Engineering
Brown University
9. Solutions for anisotropic materials
9.1 General Principles:
Constitutive law and field equations
We turn next to develop the
theory of elasticity for anisotropic solids.
The theory is far less
well developed for anisotropic materials than it
is for isotropic solids. Apart from a
few
special cases, almost all the known solutions are two-dimensional (plane
strain or anti-plane
shear). Even
simple 3D problems such as a point force in an infinite solid or on the surface
of a half-space are generally only known in Fourier transform space. The theory is still
evolving, however, and a
small but dedicated group of elasticians have made substantial
progress in
recent years.
Here, we will present briefly the
various techniques and analytical solutions that are available
today. We will
summarize approaches to solving plane problems first, before turning to 3D
boundary value problems.
Constitutive Equation
The constitutive equation for
anisotropic materials has the form where
are components of stress, and are the components of the infinitesimal
strain
tensor. The elasticity tensor has symmetries .
For anisotropic materials the
constitutive equations are best expressed in matrix form. Thus,
we write
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where ,
etc. The inverse has the form
Note that the vector definitions
of strain and stress
used in this section differ slightly from our
earlier formulation (for
consistency with Ting `Anisotropic Elasticity’)
Basis changes
The material constants or for a particular material are usually
specified in a basis with
coordinate axes aligned with particular symmetry
planes (if any) in the material. When
solving problems involving anisotropic materials it is frequently necessary to
transform these
values to a coordinate system that is oriented in some
convenient way relative to the
boundaries of the solid. Since is a fourth rank tensor, the basis change
formulas are
highly tedious, unfortunately.
We will list them below for completeness.
To this end, let us suppose that
the components of the stiffness tensor are given in a basis
,
and we wish to determine its components in a second basis, . We define the
transformation tensor with components ,
or in matrix form
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This is an orthogonal tensor
satisfying .
In practice, the tensor can be computed in
terms of the angles between the
basis vectors. It is straightforward to show that stress, strain
and elasticity
tensors transform as
The basis change formula for the
elasticity tensor is more conveniently expressed in matrix
form as
where the rotation matrix K is computed as
where the modulo function
satisfies
Although these expressions look
cumbersome they are quite convenient for computer
implementation.
The basis change for the
compliance tensor follows as
where
The proof of these expressions is
merely tiresome algebra and will not be given here. Ting’s
book (1996) has a nice clear discussion.
For the particular case of
rotation through an angle in a counterclockwise sense about the
axes, respectively, the rotation matrix
reduces to
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where .
The inverse matrix can be obtained simply by changing the sign
of
the angle in each rotation matrix. Clearly, applying the three rotations
successively can
produce an arbitrary orientation change.
9.3 Governing Equations
Our mission is to find solutions
to the Navier equation of elasticity
subject to the usual boundary
conditions. In subsequent discussions,
we will largely need to
abandon index notation and instead use matrix
notation. Thus, the equilibrium equations
will
be written as
Plane deformations
We now seek either anti-plane
shear solutions of the form ,
or plane strain
deformations of the form .
Note first that such solutions cannot
exist in general anisotropic materials.
We will first
establish the conditions necessary for the existence of
plane deformations.
For anti-plane shear deformations the equilibrium equations reduce to
The three equations cannot all be
satisfied by the same displacement; moreover elastic
constants must satisfy . Thus, anti-plane shear deformations can
exist if and only if
The governing equation is thus
For Plane strain deformations the equilibrium equations reduce to
In this case, can be chosen to satisfy two out of the three
equations, but not all three. The
elastic constants must satisfy . Consequently, the third equation can only be
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satisfied by setting
The governing equations for plane
deformations are
Plane deformations therefore only
exist in a material with elastic constants and orientation
satisfying
The most common class of crystals
– cubic materials – satisfies these conditions for
appropriate
orientations.
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