Configurational Forces on Elastic Structures

Abstract

The discovery of configurational forces acting on elastic structures and its initial applications are reviewed. Configurational forces are related to the possibility that an elastic structure can change its configuration, thus inducing a variation in the potential energy. This concept has already led to several applications (the elastica arm scale, the dripping of an elastic rod, and the torsional actuator), has been shown to strongly affect stability, and to be related to limbless locomotion. It is believed that these results will open a new research territory in mechanics.

Torsion-induced stick-slip phenomena in the delamination of soft adhesives

“…Inspired by the work of Bigoni et al, 40,41 we now perform the differentiation in (13) 2 , to obtain the configurational force associated with propagation of delamination. Such forces are often named after Eshelby.…”

On the localization of a new phase domain in the vicinity of an elliptical hole

“…The kinetic equation is formulated basing on the dissipation inequality within the framework of the mechanics of configurational forces. The original concepts of the mechanics of configurational forces are presented in [35,36] as well as in the monographs [37][38][39][40], and this area remains an active topic both in continuum and computational mechanics during past decades, see, for example [41][42][43][44][45]. It was shown that the configurational force driving the interface is equal to the jump of the normal component of the Eshelby stress tensor (see, for example [46][47][48][49]).…”