Engineering Commons^™

Material Length Scales In Gradient-Dependent Plasticity/Damage And Size Effects: Theory And Computation, Rashid Kamel Abu Al-Rub

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Structural materials display a strong size-dependence when deformed non-uniformly into the inelastic range: smaller is stronger. This effect has important implications for an increasing number of applications in structural failure, electronics, functional coatings, composites, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), nanostructured materials, micro/nanometer fabrication technologies, etc. The mechanical behavior of these applications cannot be characterized by classical (local) continuum theories because they incorporate no ‘material length scales’ and consequently predict no size effects. On the other hand, it is still not possible to perform quantum and atomistic simulations on realistic time and structures. It is therefore necessary to develop a scale-dependent continuum theory …