Research on the Thermal Cavitation Problem of a Preexisting Microvoid in a Viscoelastic Sphere

Abstract

The cavitation problem of a preexisting microvoid in the incompressible viscoelastic sphere subjected to the uniform temperature field was studied in this paper. Based on the finite logarithmic strain measure for geometrically large deformation, the nonlinear mathematical model of this problem was established by employing the Kelvin-Voigt differential type constitutive equation of thermoviscoelasticity. Adopting the dimensionless transformation of each parameter, growth curves of the microvoid radius increasing with the temperature were given. And the results indicated that the generation of cavity could be regarded as the idealized model of microvoid growth. A parametric study, including the influences of the external temperature, the initial microvoid radius, and the material parameter on the microvoid radius, was also conducted. The sudden growth of infinitely large sphere with a preexisting microvoid could also achieved by the finitely large sphere.