Symmetry analysis and equivalence transformations for the construction and reduction of constitutive models

Abstract

AbstractA methodology based on Lie analysis is proposed to investigate the mechanical behavior of materials exhibiting experimental master curves. It is based on the idea that the mechanical response of materials is associated with hidden symmetries reflected in the form of the energy functional and the dissipation potential leading to constitutive laws written in the framework of the thermodynamics of irreversible processes. In constitutive modeling, symmetry analysis lets one formulate the response of a material in terms of so-called master curves, and construct rheological models based on a limited number of measurements. The application of symmetry methods leads to model reduction in a double sense: in treating large amounts number of measurements data to reduce them in a form exploitable for the construction of constitutive models, and by exploiting equivalence transformations extending point symmetries to efficiently reduce the number of significant parameters, and thus the computational cost of solving boundary value problems (BVPs). The symmetry framework and related conservation law analysis provide invariance properties of the constitutive models, allowing to predict the influence of a variation of the model parameters on the material response or on the solution of BVPs posed over spatial domains. The first part of the paper is devoted to the presentation of the general methodology proposed in this contribution. Examples of construction of rheological models based on experimental data are given for setting up a reduced model of the uniaxial creep and rupture behaviour of a Chrome-Molybdenum alloy (9Cr1Mo) at different temperatures and stress levels. Constitutive equations for creep and rupture master responses are identified for this alloy, and validated based on experimental data. Equivalence transformations are exemplified in the context of parameter reduction in fully nonlinear anisotropic fiber-reinforced elastic solids.