Geometrical foundations of continuum mechanics. An application to first- and second-order elasticity and elasto-plasticity (Q2339749)

This book is aimed at readers with a sound understanding of differential geometry and continuum mechanics. It explains precisely how advanced tools from differential geometry are applied to continuum mechanics, and in particular to elasto-plasticity. The focus of the proposed methods lay on crystal plasticity. The book can be split into two parts -- a mathematical part with a very detailed and broad introduction to differential geometry, and a continuum mechanics part on gradient elasticity and elasto-plasticity. The book has a self-contained approach. Every mathematical or mechanical tool which is used has been previously introduced. In some cases, helpful references are given for more detailed explanations or better understanding of the development of the field. The book also contains a supplement after each chapter which covers information that is not crucial for the understanding of the presented topics, but provides a better insight into the material. Index free notation or exterior calculus are introduced in this way. The mathematical section could serve as a scriptum for a two- or three-semester course on differential geometry. It is not suitable for self-studying, since the part that covers the very basics of differential geometry does not have enough examples and links to curves and surfaces in order to demonstrate the ideas behind basic differential geometry. However, since this book is not aimed at undergraduate students of differential geometry, this is not a problem, and it is an excellent work of reference for basic and advanced differential geometric concepts in mechanics. The author explains many advanced concepts such as torsion or the Cartan transport with helpful figures, and always points out which role the introduced geometric objects play in continuum mechanics. This is very helpful because it prevents the reader from losing orientation, and motivates quite abstract concepts. Furthermore, the author provides many tables that list properties that certain objects have in different settings. In this spirit, the introductory chapter already outlines completely the approach that will be taken, and explains the relationship between all mathematical and mechanical objects which are analyzed in the book. The mathematical section starts by introducing the very basics of differential topology and differential geometry and covers step by step all major topics in differential geometry. First, manifolds are introduced with the most general definition of a connection, followed by the torsion with anholonomic objects and the Cartan transport. Then, curvature is introduced with all related tensors. Only after that, the metric is introduced and the concept of the Levi-Civita connection. Finally, the Ricci postulate is used to split a connection into three parts, namely the Levi-Civita (or Riemannian) component, the distention which is responsible for non-compatibility with the metric, and the contortion which is responsible for the torsion. Afterwards it is shown how each of these components is related to the earlier introduced concepts such as torsion or anholonomic objects, and what their properties and transformation behavior are. The mathematical part concludes with a description of the introduced concepts in two-, three-, and four-dimensional manifolds. Here several examples from mechanics are given, and links to relativity theory are explained. Since the book is aimed at advanced readers in the field, one could criticize the extent of the differential geometric introduction. The author could have pointed out the appropriate literature that covers the concepts he uses in the book. The advantage though is that the book saves the reader from cumbersome switching between different books (and notations) because probably two or three books would be needed to cover Riemannian manifolds as well as non-metric connections and connections with torsion. The part on continuum mechanics introduces first the kinematic quantities where the first three gradients of the position vector are introduced as distortion quantities. Their integrability is examined, which finally leads to a description of continua with defects by defining a defect density tensor that measures the failure of the distortion tensors to be integrable. The author uses many tables that list properties of important objects, which helps the reader with keeping an overview over the complex notation that is required in this field. A rather short chapter on elasticity explains the consequences of the vanishing curvature of the body manifold for the connection, metric, and torsion. The elasticity chapter is followed by supplements on first- and second-order elasticity in Cartesian coordinates. The theory is derived in a compact format, covering all definitions one would expect such as stress and strain tensors and their rates, balance equations, stress power, and elastic energy. However, this part seems rather brief when it comes to derivations in the second-order elasticity theory, e.g., explanations and detailed derivations of boundary conditions and balance equations with second-order stresses would have been helpful. It serves as an excellent work of reference though. The chapter on elasto-plasticity is much longer. A multiplicative decomposition of the first deformation gradient and an additive decomposition of the second deformation gradient are introduced ad hoc. This ansatz is, of course, questionable. Already in the classical theory the concept of the multiplicative decomposition was not a sound conceptual basis and lead to much misunderstanding and confusion. There are more rational concepts to be found in the literature on gradient materials. Then the lack of integrability of each component is investigated. Subsequently curvature, torsion, non-metricity and anholonomic objects related to the elastic or plastic part are used to define tensors that describe the dislocation density and the disclination density. The overview from the introductory chapter together with many diagrams and figures again help with the understanding of the nature of the introduced tensors. This chapter is followed by supplements of first- and second-order elasto-plasticity in Cartesian coordinates which cover all the important basics of plasticity based on the mentioned decompositions. Since integrability conditions and their relation to differential geometric objects play an important role in the presented concepts, the book concludes with an epilogue that summarizes the integrability conditions in comparison with their differential geometric counterparts. In summary, this book explains very well how differential geometry is applied to crystal plasticity, and which advantages this approach has. It provides a remarkably large reference part that covers all relevant basics in differential geometry, elasticity, and plasticity. A reader with advanced knowledge will thus find a valuable introduction on how to apply differential geometric methods to crystal plasticity, while a general phenomenological format for gradient plasticity is not in the focus of the book.