Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids最新文献

{"title":"Interfacial cavitation with surface tension: New insights into failure of particle reinforced polymers","authors":"Xuanhe Li ,&nbsp;Brendan M. Unikewicz ,&nbsp;S. Chockalingam ,&nbsp;Hudson Borja da Rocha ,&nbsp;Tal Cohen","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106379","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106379","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding and mitigating the failure of reinforced elastomers has been a long-standing challenge in many industrial applications. In an early attempt to shed light on the fundamental mechanisms of failure, Gent and Park presented a systematic experimental study examining the field that develops near rigid beads that are embedded in the material and describe two distinct failure phenomena: cavitation that occurs near the bead in the bulk of the material, and debonding at the bead–rubber interface [Gent, A.N. and Park, B., 1984. Journal of Materials Science, 19, pp.1947-1956]. Although the interpretation of their results has not been challenged, several questions stemming from their work remain unresolved; specifically, the reported dependence of the cavitation stress on the diameter of the bead and the counterintuitive relationship between the delamination threshold and the material stiffness. In this work, we revisit the work of Gent and Park and consider an alternative explanation of their observations, interfacial cavitation. A numerically validated semi-analytical model shows that in the presence of surface tension, defects at the bead-rubber interface may be prone to cavitate at lower pressures compared to bulk cavitation, and that surface tension can explain the reported length-scale effects. A phase-map portrays the distinct regions of ‘cavitation dominated’ and ‘delamination dominated’ failure and confirms that for the expected range of material properties of the rubbers used by Gent and Park, interfacial cavitation is a likely explanation. Crucially, this result offers a new avenue to tune and optimize the performance of reinforced polymers and other multi-material systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106379"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145268979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Adhesive contact of elastic spherical shells: Non-monotonic thickness dependence of pull-off force","authors":"Shi-Wen Chen ,&nbsp;Gang-Feng Wang ,&nbsp;Michele Ciavarella","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106388","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106388","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The adhesive contact of spherical shells is a critical problem across multiple length scales. In this study, we investigate the adhesive contact between an elastic spherical shell and a rigid plane. Two independent approaches are employed: the JKR theory from an energy perspective, and a simulation-based method incorporating a traction-separation law. Our results reveal a non-monotonic relationship between pull-off force and shell thickness. Specifically, for relatively thick shells, the pull-off force decreases with decreasing thickness; however, below a critical thickness, this trend reverses, and the pull-off force begins to increase. Furthermore, we explore the underlying mechanisms responsible for this behavior and examine the influence of adhesion parameters on the overall response.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106388"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145268981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Flexible filaments in vesicles with reduced volume: Anisotropic confinement and morphological response","authors":"Chao Shi ,&nbsp;Chengyao Zhang ,&nbsp;Yaxin Fang,&nbsp;Xin Yi","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106383","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106383","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The mechanical interplay between cell membranes and enclosed filaments is central to various cellular activities, particularly cellular morphogenesis. Here, we present a theoretical study of filament loop-induced shape transformations in vesicles with varying reduced volumes, emphasizing the coupling among filament elasticity, membrane deformability, and anisotropic confinement. We identify a range of morphological transitions—including filament buckling and reorientation, prolate-to-oblate vesicle shape changes, and complex symmetry breaking—governed by relative filament stiffness, length, and vesicle volume. Morphological phase diagrams are constructed, and energy analysis reveals the underlying mechanisms of shape transformations. We further characterize the evolution of membrane tension and examine the packing behavior of inhomogeneous filament loops. The results are complemented by a conceptually driven discussion of how anisotropic confinement and filament–vesicle coupling shape morphogenetic behavior. Our findings provide physical insight into filament–vesicle mechanics, with implications for cell shaping, cytoskeletal organization, and the design of filament-based artificial cells.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106383"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145268967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Plane strain couple stress based contact mechanics of flexoelectric solids","authors":"Jinchen Xie,&nbsp;Christian Linder","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106386","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106386","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Flexoelectric solids have the ability to convert strain gradients into electrical polarization, offering broad application prospects in micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems. In particular, when an indenter acts on a flexoelectric solid, a strong electromechanical coupling effect occurs near the contact area. However, to date, research on the contact mechanics of flexoelectric solids remains incomplete. This paper conducts the first thorough investigation into a family of contact problems in flexoelectric solids and uncovers novel multiphysics contact mechanisms rooted in generalized continuum mechanics. These multiple contact problems include half-plane contact, tilted contact, adhesive contact, contact of a finite-thickness layer, sliding frictional contact, and normal fretting contact. On the one hand, we employ Fourier transforms to convert these contact problems into singular integral equations, solve them to obtain the multiphysics fields on the contact surface, and investigate the effects of various indenter types. On the other hand, we establish mixed finite element formulations for couple stress based flexoelectricity. Combining contact surface stress distributions derived from solving singular integral equations, we perform finite element simulations of flexoelectric plane strain contact problems and obtain the internal field variable distributions. The theoretical solutions from the singular integral equations and the corresponding mixed finite element numerical solutions are mutually corroborative and complementary. This study helps to understand the mechanics and physics of flexoelectric contact problems and offers guidance for flexoelectric nanoindentation experiments and device design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106386"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145268968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the statistical physics and thermodynamics of polymer networks: An Eulerian theory for entropic elasticity","authors":"Siyu Wang ,&nbsp;Heng Xiao ,&nbsp;Lin Zhan","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106382","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106382","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;This study presents an Eulerian theory to elucidate the molecular kinematics in polymer networks and their connection to continuum deformation, grounded in fundamental statistical physics and thermodynamics, and free from phenomenological assumptions and additional parameters. Three key innovations are incorporated:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;1. The network behavior is described through a global thermodynamic equilibrium condition that maximizes the number of accessible microstates for all segments, instead of directly dealing with the well-established single-chain models commonly adopted in traditional approaches. A variational problem is then posed in the Eulerian framework to identify this equilibrium state under geometric fluctuation constraints. Its solution recaptures the classical single-chain model and reveals the dependence of chain kinematics on continuum deformation.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;2. The chain stretch and orientation probability are found to be explicitly specified through the Eulerian logarithmic strain and spatial direction. The resulting hyperelastic model, with a minimal number of physical parameters, outperforms the extant models with same number of parameters. It further provides a physical justification for prior models exhibiting superior predictive capabilities: the model becomes equivalent to the Biot-chain model (Zhan et al. 2023b) at moderate deformations, while converging to the classical Hencky strain energy in the small strain limit.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;3. A novel biaxial instability emerges as a phase transition in chain orientation. At sufficiently large deformation, chains increasingly align with the primary stretched direction, depleting their density in other directions. Consequently, the stresses in non-primary stretched directions would decrease as the loss in chain density outweighs the gain in chain force. For equal biaxial tension, instability is therefore triggered because perfect equality of the two principal stretches without any perturbation is practically unachievable.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The theory establishes a physical picture of the network response under thermodynamic equilibrium: chain constrains but segment fluctuates. It is the statistical behavior of the latter, under the structural influence of the former, that governs the continuum response. Specifically, the macroscopic response of the network may not emerge from simplistic extensions of the chain-level models, but arises as a natural consequence of the underlying &lt;em&gt;segment-level&lt;/em&gt; statistics. The theory also necessitates an Eulerian statistical perspective, as random thermal fluctuations prevent continuous tracking of any specified chains (material description) during deformation. Consequently, the Lagrangian framework may not be well suited in this context and chain stretch and orientation probability need be treated as Eulerian/spatial field variables. These perspectives not only advance the theoretical foundations of constitutive modeling for soft polymer networks, ","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106382"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145268978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modeling strain hardening in glassy polymers based on the microscopic mechanisms revealed by molecular dynamic simulations","authors":"Wuyang Zhao ,&nbsp;Rui Xiao ,&nbsp;Sebastian Pfaller ,&nbsp;Paul Steinmann","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106384","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106384","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the microscopic mechanisms underlying strain hardening in glassy polymers. The results reveal that strain hardening originates from heterogeneous local stretching within entangled segments of polymer chains. In each segment, the most extended bond, defined as the load-bearing bond, governs the response of the segment to mechanical deformation. Through averaging the stretch of these load-bearing bonds, a load-bearing deformation gradient is defined, which correlates with the macroscopic stress response through a neo-Hookean relation in the hardening regime. The extracted hardening modulus is independent of chain length, temperature, and strain rate, indicating that it may represent an intrinsic material constant. We further propose an evolution equation for the relaxation of entangled segments driven by the hardening stress based on MD observations. Through incorporating the load-bearing and entanglement relaxation mechanisms, a constitutive model is further developed with the ability to accurately capture the stress–strain relationship of glassy polymers across a broad range of temperatures, strain rates, and chain lengths. The work provides a unified microscopic theoretical framework for complex mechanical behavior of glassy polymers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106384"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Step meandering during epitaxial growth","authors":"L. Benoit–Maréchal ,&nbsp;M.E. Jabbour ,&nbsp;N. Triantafyllidis","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106376","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106376","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The present study is a theoretical investigation of meandering steps on vicinal surfaces, an instability phenomenon occurring during epitaxial growth in crystals. Results are based on the linear stability analysis using a thermodynamically consistent multiphysics continuum mechanics model, which accounts for the dynamics of adatom diffusion on terraces (the <em>dynamical effect</em>) and attachment-detachment at steps and generalizes the expression of the step chemical potential by incorporating the necessary coupling between the diffusion fields on adjacent terraces (the <em>chemical effect</em>). Having previously shown that these dynamical and chemical effects can explain the onset of straight-step bunching without recourse to the inverse Ehrlich-Schwoebel (iES) barrier or other extraneous mechanisms, the novelty of the present work consists in the extension of our previous 1D analysis for straight steps to a 2D modeling for the meandering steps. Like in the straight-step context, the chemical and dynamical effects have a non-negligible influence on the stability of the system, leading to non-trivial results like multimode instabilities or abrupt bunching-to-meandering transitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106376"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145268980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phase-field modeling of elastic microphase separation","authors":"H. Oudich,&nbsp;P. Carrara,&nbsp;L. De Lorenzis","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106380","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106380","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose a novel phase-field model to predict elastic microphase separation in polymer gels. To this end, we extend the <em>Cahn-Hilliard</em> free-energy functional to incorporate an elastic strain energy and a coupling term. These contributions are naturally obtained from a derivation that starts from an entropic elastic energy density combined with the assumption of weak compressibility, upon second-order approximation around the swollen state. The resulting terms correspond to those of a poroelastic formulation where the coupling energetic term can be interpreted as the osmotic work of the solvent within the polymer matrix. Additionally, a convolution term is included in the total energy to model non-local forces responsible for coarsening arrest. With analytical derivations in 1D and finite element computations in 2D we show that the mechanical deformation controls the composition of the stable phases, the initial characteristic length and time, the coarsening rates and the arrested characteristic length. Moreover, we demonstrate that the proposed coupling is able to predict the arrest of coarsening at a length scale controlled by the stiffness of the dry polymer. The numerical results show excellent agreement with the experimental evidence in terms of phase-separated morphology and scaling of the characteristic length with the stiffness of the dry polymer.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106380"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exceptional points and chiral mode conversion in non-Hermitian elastic media","authors":"Youdong Duan ,&nbsp;Linlin Geng ,&nbsp;Guoliang Huang ,&nbsp;Xiaoming Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Non-Hermitian behaviors for elastic waves, including the parity-time (PT) symmetric and anti-PT symmetric exceptional points (EPs) as well as chiral mode conversion via the dynamic encircling of them, are realized in a unified model based on anisotropic elastic media with complex modulus. Based on the tight-binding approximation of elastodynamic equations, the coupling interaction between elastic wave modes is described by the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, which is used to derive the existence condition of PT-symmetric and anti-PT-symmetric EPs in different parameter systems. Eigenmode evolution of elastic waves in the process of dynamic encircling of EPs is studied in the spatially modulated model consisting of the multilayered anisotropic media. Chiral mode conversion for elastic waves as dominated by the encircling direction is disclosed by the developed model. The dynamical encircling of a PT-symmetric EP can lead to chiral mode conversion for the symmetric phase, while encircling an anti-PT-symmetric EP results in chiral mode switching for the broken phase. Dynamic evolution along regular and irregular paths are analyzed to demonstrate the topological robustness of chiral mode conversion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106385"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A unified thermo-viscoelastic phase-field fracture model for fiber-reinforced polymer composites","authors":"Akash Kumar,&nbsp;Trisha Sain","doi":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106378","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmps.2025.106378","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Modeling fracture and damage in fiber-reinforced polymer composites (FRPCs) is complex due to their inherent anisotropic properties and heterogeneous microstructures. The complexities are further amplified under combined thermo-mechanical boundary conditions. In the present work, we propose a thermodynamically consistent, fully coupled thermo-mechanical phase-field fracture model incorporating matrix viscoelasticity to predict rate and temperature-dependent fracture in carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. The model predicts the overall load–displacement response and propagating crack paths at transient and steady state thermal environments by employing damage-informed thermomechanical coupling and anisotropic heat conduction. Based on a recently developed theory of phase-field fracture, the diffused phase-field variables are utilized to approximate sharp cracks and interfaces in composite laminates, with the constitutive response of the latter governed by the traction–separation laws. The viscoelastic behavior of the polymer matrix at high temperature is captured through a standard linear viscoelastic constitutive model, and the fibers are considered elastic anisotropic constituents. Using the CFRP’s temperature-dependent viscoelastic characteristics, to demonstrate the predictive capability of the proposed model, a series of benchmark simulations is conducted, including mode-I tensile loading, and strain rate-dependent tests on CFRP lamina at elevated temperatures. The model is further applied to investigate the effects of fiber orientation on crack propagation and temperature evolution under pure thermal and coupled thermo-mechanical boundary conditions. Additionally, we analyze the interaction between bulk cracking and interfacial delamination in laminated composites, subjected to thermal and mechanical boundary conditions. The results show good insight into expected failure mechanisms, highlighting the model’s effectiveness in capturing complex crack interactions, rate-dependent fracture, and thermo-mechanical coupling effects in CFRP fracture.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids","volume":"206 ","pages":"Article 106378"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}