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    Fundamentals of Continuum Mechanics
    Fundamentals of Continuum Mechanics
    Fundamentals of Continuum Mechanics
    Ebook390 pages2 hours

    Fundamentals of Continuum Mechanics

    By John W. Rudnicki

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    About this ebook

    A concise introductory course text on continuum mechanics

    Fundamentals of Continuum Mechanics focuses on the fundamentals of the subject and provides the background for formulation of numerical methods for large deformations and a wide range of material behaviours. It aims to provide the foundations for further study, not just of these subjects, but also the formulations for much more complex material behaviour and their implementation computationally. 

    This book is divided into 5 parts, covering mathematical preliminaries, stress, motion and deformation, balance of mass, momentum and energy, and ideal constitutive relations and is a suitable textbook for introductory graduate courses for students in mechanical and civil engineering, as well as those studying material science, geology and geophysics and biomechanics.  

    • A concise introductory course text on continuum mechanics
    • Covers the fundamentals of continuum mechanics
    • Uses modern tensor notation
    • Contains problems and accompanied by a companion website hosting solutions
    • Suitable as a textbook for introductory graduate courses for students in mechanical and civil engineering
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWiley
    Release dateSep 22, 2014
    ISBN9781118927670
    Fundamentals of Continuum Mechanics

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      Book preview

      Fundamentals of Continuum Mechanics - John W. Rudnicki

      Introduction

      Continuum mechanics is a mathematical framework for studying the transmission of force through and deformation of materials of all types. The goal is to construct a framework that is free of special assumptions about the type of material, the size of deformations, the geometry of the problem, and so forth. Of course, no real materials are actually continuous. We know from physics and chemistry that all materials are formed of discrete atoms and molecules. Even at much larger size scales, materials may be composed of distinct components, e.g., grains of sand or platelets of blood. At even larger scales, for instance, the Earth's crust, fractures are ubiquitous. Nevertheless, treating material as continuous is a great advantage because it allows us to use the mathematical tools of continuous functions, such as differentiation. In addition to being convenient, this approach works remarkably well. This is true even at size scales for which the justification of treating the material as a continuum might be debatable. Although there are certainly problems for which it is necessary to take into account the discrete nature of materials, the ultimate justification for using continuum mechanics is that predictions are often in accord with observations and measurements.

      Although the framework of continuum mechanics does not make reference to particular kinds of materials, its application does require a mathematical description of material response. These descriptions are inevitably idealizations based on experiments, conceptual models, or microstructural considerations.

      Until recently, it was only possible to solve a relatively small number of problems without the assumptions of small deformations and very simple material behavior. Now, however, modern computational techniques have made it possible to solve problems involving large deformation and complex material behavior. This possibility has made it important to formulate these problems correctly and to be able to interpret the solutions. Continuum mechanics does this.

      The vocabulary of continuum mechanics involves mathematical objects called tensors. These can be thought of as following naturally from vectors. Therefore, we will begin by studying vectors. Although most students are acquainted with vectors in some form or another, we will reintroduce them in a way that leads naturally to tensors.

      Part One

      Mathematical Preliminaries

      This part provides the foundation for the rest of the book. The treatment is meant to make the book self-contained, assumes little background from the reader, and only covers what is needed later in the book. The treatment begins with vectors. Although most readers will be acquainted with vectors, they are introduced in a way that leads naturally to tensors, introduced in the second chapter, and their representation in terms of dyadics, in the third. Vectors and tensors are introduced in coordinate-free form, appropriate for describing the physical entities that arise in continuum mechanics, before discussing their representation in terms of Cartesian coordinates in the third chapter. This chapter introduces index notation and the summation convention. Chapter 4 discusses the cross product, introduces the permutation symbol, and provides an introduction to the discussion of determinants in the following chapter. Chapter 6 derives the relation between vector and tensor components in coordinate systems that differ by a rotation. This relation provides an alternative method of defining vectors and tensors. Chapter 7 discusses principal values and directions which are pertinent to many of the particular tensors introduced later. Chapter 8 discusses the gradient, but this material is not needed until Part Three, Motion and Deformation, and can be deferred until then. Although Chapter 18, Transformation of Integrals, covers a subject more naturally suited to this part, it is not needed until Part Four and is deferred until then.

      Part One has been written with a view toward what is used later in the book. Many of the exercises derive results that are used later in the book. Consequently, even readers who are familiar with much of this material may find value here.

      1

      Vectors

      Some physical quantities are described by scalars, e.g., density, temperature, kinetic energy. These are pure numbers, although they do have dimensions. It would make no physical sense to add a density, with dimensions of mass divided by length cubed, to kinetic energy, with dimensions of mass times length squared divided by time squared.

      Vectors are mathematical objects that are associated with both a magnitude, described by a number, and a direction. An important property of vectors is that they can be used to represent physical entities such as force, momentum, and displacement. Consequently, the meaning of the vector is (in a sense we will make more precise) independent of how it is represented. For example, if someone punches you in the nose, this is a physical action that could be described by a force vector. The physical action and its result (a sore nose) are independent of the particular coordinate system we use to represent the force vector. Hence, the meaning of the vector is not tied to any particular coordinate system or description. For this reason, we will introduce vectors in coordinate-free form and defer description in terms of particular coordinate systems.

      A vector u can be represented as a directed line segment, as shown in Figure 1.1. The length of the vector is its magnitude, and denoted by u or by |u|. Multiplying a vector by a positive scalar α changes the length of the vector but not its orientation. If α > 1, the vector αu is longer than u; if α < 1, αu is shorter than u. If α is negative, the orientation of the vector is reversed. It is always possible to form a vector of unit magnitude by choosing α = u− 1.

      Figure 1.1 Multiplication of a vector by a scalar.

      The addition of two vectors u and v can be written as

      (1.1) numbered Display Equation

      Although the same symbol is used as for ordinary addition, the meaning here is different. Vectors add according to the parallelogram law shown in Figure 1.2. If the tails of the vectors (the ends without arrows) are placed at a point, the sum is the diagonal of the parallelogram with sides formed by the vectors. Alternatively the vectors can be added by placing the tail of one at the head of the other. The sum is then the vector directed from the free tail to the free head. Implicit in both of these operations is the idea that we are dealing with free vectors. In order to add two vectors, they can be moved, keeping the length and orientation, so that the vectors can be connected head to tail. It is clear from the construction in Figure 1.2 that vector addition is

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