Energy minimization and the formation of microstructure in dynamic anti- plane shear (Q1261963)

The behaviour of a continuum model within the framework of nonlinear viscoelasticity, which provides an insight into the dynamical development of microstructures observed during displacement phase transformations in certain materials, is investigated. The problem of dynamical two- dimensional anti-plane shear with linear viscoelastic damping is considered. Using a transformation due to \textit{P. Rybka} [Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., Sect. A 121, No. 1/2, 101-138 (1992; Zbl 0758.73004)], the equivalence of this problem to a semilinear degenerate parabolic system can be shown, and the latter system can be treated by the method of semigroup theory to establish existence, uniqueness and regularity of solutions in \(L^ p\) spaces. The issues of energy minimization and propagation of strain discontinuities are also discussed, but unfortunately, the authors are unable to obtain analogues of the results on non-minimization of the energy and non-propagation of strain discontinuities in one-dimensional models. Finally, a finite difference approach to the numerical solution of the dynamical anti-plane shear problem is developed, and some numerical simulations of the dynamical evolution of patterns and microstructure in the above problem are presented.