Thermodynamic behaviour of microstretch viscoelastic solids with internal heat source

The dynamical interactions caused by a line heat source moving inside a homogeneous isotropic thermo-microstretch viscoelastic half space, whose surface is subjected to a thermal load, are investigated. The formulation is in the context of generalized thermoelasticity theories proposed by Lord and Shulman (J. Mech. Phys. Solid, 15, 299 (1967)) and Green and Lindsay (Thermoelasticity, J. Elasticity, 2, 1 (1972)). The surface is assumed to be traction free. The solutions in terms of displacement components, mechanical stresses, temperature, couple stress, and microstress distribution are procured by employing the normal mode analysis. The numerical estimates of the considered variables are obtained for an aluminium–epoxy material. The results obtained are demonstrated graphically to show the effect of moving heat source and viscosity on the displacement, stresses, and temperature distribution.

Geometrical Critical Thickness Theory for the Size Effect at the Initiation of Plasticity

Recently, size effects in the initiation of plasticity have been clearly observed and reported in different geometries; e.g., bending (Ehrler et al. Phil. Mag. 2008), twisting (Ehrler et al., MRS, Spring Meeting 2009) and indentation (Zhu et al. J. Mech. Phys. Sol. 56, 1170, 2008). Strain gradient plasticity theory is the principal approach for explaining size effects during plastic deformation in these geometries. However, it fails to account for any size effect at the initial yield. Geometrical critical thickness theory was proposed to explain the yield size effect in bending and torsion (Dunstan and Bushby, Proc. Roy. Soc. A460, 2781, 2004). The theory shows that the initial yield strength is scaled with the inverse square root of the characteristic length scale without requiring any free fitting parameters. Here, we extend the theory to describe the yield size effect in indentation. The theory agrees fairly well with experimental observations in micro-torsion (Ehrler et al., MRS, Spring Meeting 2009) and nanoindentation (Zhu et al., J. Mech. Phys. Solid, 2008).