On the mathematical modelling of material behavior in continuum mechanics

Summary The classical theories of continuum mechanics — linear elasticity, viscoelasticity, plasticity and hydrodynamics — are defined by special constitutive equations. These can be understood to be asymptotic approximations of a quite general constitutive model, valid under restrictive assumptions for the stress functional or the input processes. The general theory of material behavior develops systematic methods to represent material properties in a context of physical evidence and mathematical consistency. According to experimental observations material behavior may be rate independent or rate dependent with or without equilibrium hysteresis. This motivates four different constitutive theories, namely elasticity, plasticity, viscoelasticity and viscoplasticity. Constitutive equations can be formulated explicitly as functionals. Then, the particular constitutive models correspond to continuity properties of these functionals, related to convenient function spaces. On the other hand, a system of differential equations may lead to an implicit definition of a stress functional. In this case additional variables are introduced, which are called internal variables. For these variables additional evolution equations must be formulated, specifying the rate of change of the internal variables in dependence on their present values and the strain (or stress) input. In the context of different models of inelastic material behavior the evolution equations have different mathematical characteristics. These concern the existence of equilibrium solutions and their stability properties. Rate independent material behavior is modelled by means of evolution equations, which are related to an arclength instead of the time as independent variable. It can be shown that the rate independent constitutive equations of elastoplasticity are the asymptotic limit of rate dependent viscoplasticity for slow deformation processes.This paper is an extended version of a lecture held at the First Conference of the GAMM working group on material theory in Stuttgart, Germany, February 28, 1992. The author thanks Prof. Dr. F. Ziegler for the opportunity to participate in this conference.