On constitutive equations for branching of response with selectivity

Abstract

Materials, such as elastic-plastic, which exhibit distinct regimes of response are usually modeled by different constitutive equations in each regime. The present paper explores a method for the construction of a unified constitutive equation from these separate relations. The main idea is to write this unified equation in an implicit form which contains these separate solutions as non-unique solutions. The form is chosen in order to utilize the notions of branch points and branches. Different solutions, corresponding to constitutive equations for different regimes of response, are then regarded as bifurcations at branch points from the fundamental response. The choice of the appropriate branch at a branch point is governed by a selectivity condition which depends on the nature of the response under consideration. A detailed example is provided for elastic-plastic response, with and without the effect of strain rate dependence.