Wave-like solutions in Cosserat micropolar elasticity

<p>The Cosserat model generalises an elastic material taking into account the possible microstructure of the elements of the material continuum. In particular, within the Cosserat model the structured material point is rigid and can only experience microrotations, which is also known as micropolar elasticity. The propagation of elastic waves in such a medium is studied and we find two classes of waves, transversal rotational waves and longitudinal rotational waves, both of which are solutions of the nonlinear partial differential equations. For certain parameter choices, the transversal wave velocity can be greater than the longitudinal wave velocity.  We couple the rotational waves to linear elastic waves to study the behaviour of the coupled system and find wave-like solutions with differing wave speeds. In addition we also consider the so-called Cosserat coupling term. In this setting we seek soliton type solutions assuming small elastic displacements, however, we allow the material points to experience full rotations which are not assumed to be small.</p>

A Cosserat Model of Elastic Solids Reinforced by a Family of Curved and Twisted Fibers

A Cosserat theory for fiber-reinforced elastic solids developed in Steigmann (2012) is generalized to accommodate initial curvature and twist of the fibers. The basic variables of the theory are a conventional deformation field and a rotation field that describes the local fiber orientation. Constraints on these fields are introduced to model the materiality of the fibers with respect to the underlying matrix deformation. A variational argument delivers the relevant equilibrium equations and boundary conditions and furnishes the interpretation of the Lagrange multipliers associated with the constraints as shear tractions acting on the fiber cross sections. Finally, the theory of material symmetry for such solids is developed and applied to the classification of some explicit constitutive functions.