Second-order bifurcation in elastic-plastic solids (Q1075804)

The problem of bifurcation in elastic-plastic solids is a difficult one and not yet very well understood. This is basically due to the complicated interaction between the elastic and plastic material response. The authors extend existing bifurcation investigations by formulating second order rate constitutive equations for a time- independent elastic-plastic material, obeying the normality flow rule with a smooth yield surface and solving the corresponding boundary value problem, the solution of which is shown to be governed by a variational principle. They show that in the post-bifurcation regime second order bifurcations are possible while the first order rate problem is still uniquely solvable.