Contribution to geometric modeling and thermodynamics of a class of weakly continuous media (Q1387620)

This ambitious contribution has for acknowledged purpose to provide a thermodynamically admissible continuous geometric description of materials which are ``continuously defective'', i.e., materials that present at any point a density of singular kinematical fields (such as in microcracks). In agreement with previous authors, this is feasible only if the material manifold itself is no longer Euclidean, but it admits a richer structure where some geometrical properties like affine connection will be related to defect densities (e.g., density of dislocations). The author rightfully refers to his description as one for ``weakly continuous'' bodies. The purpose of the paper makes that much space is occupied by many mathematical definitions. The really new attempt by the author is a combination of the geometrical support offered by a material manifold with affine connection and the thermomechanical approach to the so-called ``generalized standard materials'', favored by contemporary French thermodynamicists of the continuum. A fundamental role is played by the intrinsic divergence (in the introduced connection), since balance laws are the main ingredients of continuum physics. The hypothesis of weak discontinuity (in the above sense) is first introduced by appealing to the notion of ever presented surfaces of tangential discontinuities at a microscopic level. The corresponding deformation kinematics then is described with an emphasis on the definition of various derivatives. There follows an intrinsic formulation of balance laws adopting the notion of Poincaré invariant integral. Various specific models of weakly continuous materials are presented together with a thermodynamical background (e.g., thermo-viscoelastic materials subjected to the entropy inequality). Interesting remarks relate the presented description to the question of introducing an intermediate configuration or higher-order gradients. The work concludes with an application of the notion of media (equipped with internal variables of state) with normal dissipation and of the principle of maximal dissipation of Hill and Mandel (see \textit{G. A. Maugin} [The thermomechanics of plasticity and fracture. Cambridge Texts in Applied Mathematics. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, (1992; Zbl 0753.73001)], for these concepts).