The effect of a spherical inclusion in an anisotropic solid

Summary

A spherical domain within an anisotropic crystalline material is considered to have elastic constants differing from those of the remainder of the material; the particular case where the constants vanish within the sphere represents a cavity. The elastic fields inside and immediately outside the spherical domain, together with the interaction energy, are calculated for the case of a uniform stress applied at infinity. Specific examples are given for aluminum, copper, and pyrite, and numerical results are compared with those for isotropic material. The tensile stress concentration is larger for aluminum than for isotropic material while the opposite is true for pyrite. Similarly, the interaction energy of the inhomogeneity is larger for an anisotropic material than an isotropic material, but in pyrite the reverse is found.