Solid mechanics, also known as mechanics of solids, is the branch of
continuum mechanics
Continuum mechanics is a branch of mechanics that deals with the mechanical behavior of materials modeled as a continuous mass rather than as discrete particles. The French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy was the first to formulate such ...
that studies the behavior of
solid
Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structura ...
materials, especially their motion and
deformation under the action of
force
In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a ...
s,
temperature
Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer.
Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied on ...
changes,
phase changes, and other external or internal agents.
Solid mechanics is fundamental for
civil
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
*Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
*Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a membe ...
,
aerospace
Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...
,
nuclear
Nuclear may refer to:
Physics
Relating to the nucleus of the atom:
*Nuclear engineering
*Nuclear physics
*Nuclear power
*Nuclear reactor
*Nuclear weapon
*Nuclear medicine
*Radiation therapy
*Nuclear warfare
Mathematics
*Nuclear space
* Nuclear ...
,
biomedical and
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, ...
, for
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...
, and for many branches of
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...
such as
materials science.
It has specific applications in many other areas, such as understanding the
anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...
of living beings, and the design of
dental prostheses
A dental prosthesis is an intraoral (inside the mouth) prosthesis used to restore (reconstruct) intraoral defects such as missing teeth, missing parts of teeth, and missing soft or hard structures of the jaw and palate. Prosthodontics is the den ...
and
surgical implants. One of the most common practical applications of solid mechanics is the
Euler–Bernoulli beam equation. Solid mechanics extensively uses
tensor
In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects related to a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other tens ...
s to describe stresses, strains, and the relationship between them.
Solid mechanics is a vast subject because of the wide range of solid materials available, such as steel, wood, concrete, biological materials, textiles, geological materials, and plastics.
Fundamental aspects
A ''solid'' is a material that can support a substantial amount of
shearing force over a given time scale during a natural or industrial process or action. This is what distinguishes solids from
fluid
In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shea ...
s, because fluids also support ''normal forces'' which are those forces that are directed perpendicular to the material plane across from which they act and ''normal stress'' is the
normal force per unit area of that material plane. ''Shearing forces'' in contrast with ''normal forces'', act parallel rather than perpendicular to the material plane and the shearing force per unit area is called ''shear stress''.
Therefore, solid mechanics examines the shear stress, deformation and the failure of solid materials and structures.
The most common topics covered in solid mechanics include:
# stability of structures - examining whether structures can return to a given equilibrium after disturbance or partial/complete failure
# dynamical systems and chaos - dealing with mechanical systems highly sensitive to their given initial position
# thermomechanics - analyzing materials with models derived from principles of
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws o ...
#
biomechanics
Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to organs, cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechanics. Biomechanics is a branch ...
- solid mechanics applied to biological materials e.g. bones, heart tissue
# geomechanics - solid mechanics applied to geological materials e.g. ice, soil, rock
# vibrations of solids and structures - examining vibration and wave propagation from vibrating particles and structures i.e. vital in mechanical, civil, mining, aeronautical, maritime/marine, aerospace engineering
# fracture and damage mechanics - dealing with crack-growth mechanics in solid materials
# composite materials - solid mechanics applied to materials made up of more than one compound e.g.
reinforced plastics,
reinforced concrete,
fiber glass
# variational formulations and computational mechanics - numerical solutions to mathematical equations arising from various branches of solid mechanics e.g.
finite element method (FEM)
# experimental mechanics - design and analysis of experimental methods to examine the behavior of solid materials and structures
Relationship to continuum mechanics
As shown in the following table, solid mechanics inhabits a central place within continuum mechanics. The field of
rheology
Rheology (; ) is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid (liquid or gas) state, but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an appli ...
presents an overlap between solid and
fluid mechanics
Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasmas) and the forces on them.
It has applications in a wide range of disciplines, including mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical and ...
.
Response models
A material has a rest shape and its shape departs away from the rest shape due to stress. The amount of departure from rest shape is called
deformation, the proportion of deformation to original size is called strain. If the applied stress is sufficiently low (or the imposed strain is small enough), almost all solid materials behave in such a way that the strain is directly proportional to the stress; the coefficient of the proportion is called the
modulus of elasticity
An elastic modulus (also known as modulus of elasticity) is the unit of measurement of an object's or substance's resistance to being deformed elastically (i.e., non-permanently) when a stress is applied to it. The elastic modulus of an object is ...
. This region of deformation is known as the linearly elastic region.
It is most common for analysts in solid mechanics to use
linear
Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship ('' function'') that can be graphically represented as a straight line. Linearity is closely related to '' proportionality''. Examples in physics include rectilinear motion, the linear ...
material models, due to ease of computation. However, real materials often exhibit
non-linear
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...
behavior. As new materials are used and old ones are pushed to their limits, non-linear material models are becoming more common.
These are basic models that describe how a solid responds to an applied stress:
#
Elasticity – When an applied stress is removed, the material returns to its undeformed state. Linearly elastic materials, those that deform proportionally to the applied load, can be described by the
linear elasticity equations such as
Hooke's law
In physics, Hooke's law is an empirical law which states that the force () needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance () scales linearly with respect to that distance—that is, where is a constant factor characteristic of ...
.
#
Viscoelasticity
In materials science and continuum mechanics, viscoelasticity is the property of materials that exhibit both viscous and elastic characteristics when undergoing deformation. Viscous materials, like water, resist shear flow and strain linear ...
– These are materials that behave elastically, but also have
damping: when the stress is applied and removed, work has to be done against the damping effects and is converted in heat within the material resulting in a
hysteresis loop
Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of ...
in the stress–strain curve. This implies that the material response has time-dependence.
#
Plasticity – Materials that behave elastically generally do so when the applied stress is less than a yield value. When the stress is greater than the yield stress, the material behaves plastically and does not return to its previous state. That is, deformation that occurs after yield is permanent.
#
Viscoplasticity
Viscoplasticity is a theory in continuum mechanics that describes the rate-dependent inelastic behavior of solids. Rate-dependence in this context means that the deformation of the material depends on the rate at which loads are applied. The in ...
- Combines theories of viscoelasticity and plasticity and applies to materials like
gels and
mud.
# Thermoelasticity - There is coupling of mechanical with thermal responses. In general, thermoelasticity is concerned with elastic solids under conditions that are neither isothermal nor adiabatic. The simplest theory involves the
Fourier's law
Conduction is the process by which heat is transferred from the hotter end to the colder end of an object. The ability of the object to conduct heat is known as its ''thermal conductivity'', and is denoted .
Heat spontaneously flows along a te ...
of heat conduction, as opposed to advanced theories with physically more realistic models.
Timeline
*1452–1519
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially re ...
made many contributions
*1638:
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He w ...
published the book "
Two New Sciences" in which he examined the failure of simple structures
*1660:
Hooke's law
In physics, Hooke's law is an empirical law which states that the force () needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance () scales linearly with respect to that distance—that is, where is a constant factor characteristic of ...
by
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that h ...
*1687:
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the g ...
published "
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. S ...
" which contains
Newton's laws of motion
Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows:
# A body remains at rest, or in moti ...
*1750:
Euler–Bernoulli beam equation
*1700–1782:
Daniel Bernoulli
Daniel Bernoulli FRS (; – 27 March 1782) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family from Basel. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mech ...
introduced the principle of
virtual work
*1707–1783:
Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...
developed the theory of
buckling
In structural engineering, buckling is the sudden change in shape ( deformation) of a structural component under load, such as the bowing of a column under compression or the wrinkling of a plate under shear. If a structure is subjected to a ...
of columns
*1826:
Claude-Louis Navier
Claude-Louis Navier (born Claude Louis Marie Henri Navier; ; 10 February 1785 – 21 August 1836) was a French mechanical engineer, affiliated with the French government, and a physicist who specialized in continuum mechanics.
The Navier–St ...
published a treatise on the elastic behaviors of structures
*1873:
Carlo Alberto Castigliano
Carlo Alberto Castigliano (9 November 1847, in Asti – 25 October 1884, in Milan) was an Italian mathematician and physicist known for Castigliano's method for determining displacements in a linear-elastic system based on the partial deriv ...
presented his dissertation "Intorno ai sistemi elastici", which contains
his theorem for computing displacement as partial derivative of the strain energy. This theorem includes the method of ''least work'' as a special case
*1874:
Otto Mohr
Christian Otto Mohr (8 October 1835 – 2 October 1918) was a German civil engineer. He is renowned for his contributions to the field of structural engineering, such as Mohr's circle, and for his study of stress.
Biography
He was born on 8 Oct ...
formalized the idea of a statically indeterminate structure.
*1922:
Timoshenko Tymoshenko ( uk, Тимошенко, translit=Tymošenko), Timoshenko (russian: Тимошенко), or Tsimashenka/Cimašenka ( be, Цімашэнка) is a surname of Ukrainian origin. It derives from the Christian name Timothy, and its Ukrainian ...
corrects the
Euler–Bernoulli beam equation
*1936:
Hardy Cross
Hardy Cross (1885–1959) was an American structural engineer and the developer of the moment distribution method for structural analysis of statically indeterminate structures. The method was in general use from c. 1935 until c. 1960 when it was ...
' publication of the moment distribution method, an important innovation in the design of continuous frames.
*1941:
Alexander Hrennikoff solved the discretization of plane elasticity problems using a lattice framework
*1942:
R. Courant divided a domain into finite subregions
*1956: J. Turner, R. W. Clough, H. C. Martin, and L. J. Topp's paper on the "Stiffness and Deflection of Complex Structures" introduces the name "finite-element method" and is widely recognized as the first comprehensive treatment of the method as it is known today
See also
*
Strength of materials
The field of strength of materials, also called mechanics of materials, typically refers to various methods of calculating the stresses and strains in structural members, such as beams, columns, and shafts. The methods employed to predict the re ...
- Specific definitions and the relationships between stress and strain.
*
Applied mechanics
Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and e ...
*
Materials science
*
Continuum mechanics
Continuum mechanics is a branch of mechanics that deals with the mechanical behavior of materials modeled as a continuous mass rather than as discrete particles. The French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy was the first to formulate such ...
*
Fracture mechanics
Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics ...
*
Impact (mechanics)
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
L.D. Landau,
E.M. Lifshitz, ''
Course of Theoretical Physics
The ''Course of Theoretical Physics'' is a ten-volume series of books covering theoretical physics that was initiated by Lev Landau and written in collaboration with his student Evgeny Lifshitz starting in the late 1930s.
It is said that Lan ...
: Theory of Elasticity'' Butterworth-Heinemann,
* J.E. Marsden, T.J. Hughes, ''Mathematical Foundations of Elasticity'', Dover,
* P.C. Chou, N. J. Pagano, ''Elasticity: Tensor, Dyadic, and Engineering Approaches'', Dover,
* R.W. Ogden, ''Non-linear Elastic Deformation'', Dover,
*
S. Timoshenko and J.N. Goodier," Theory of elasticity", 3d ed., New York, McGraw-Hill, 1970.
*
G.A. Holzapfel, ''Nonlinear Solid Mechanics: A Continuum Approach for Engineering'', Wiley, 2000
* A.I. Lurie, ''Theory of Elasticity'', Springer, 1999.
* L.B. Freund, ''Dynamic Fracture Mechanics'', Cambridge University Press, 1990.
* R. Hill, ''The Mathematical Theory of Plasticity'', Oxford University, 1950.
* J. Lubliner, ''Plasticity Theory'', Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990.
* J. Ignaczak,
M. Ostoja-Starzewski
Martin Ostoja-Starzewski is a Polish-Canadian-American scientist and engineer, a professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research includes work on deterministic and stochastic mechanics: r ...
, ''Thermoelasticity with Finite Wave Speeds'', Oxford University Press, 2010.
* D. Bigoni, ''Nonlinear Solid Mechanics: Bifurcation Theory and Material Instability'', Cambridge University Press, 2012.
* Y. C. Fung, Pin Tong and Xiaohong Chen, ''Classical and Computational Solid Mechanics'', 2nd Edition, World Scientific Publishing, 2017, .
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