Extremum and variational principles for elastic and inelastic media with fractal geometries

Abstract

This paper further continues the recently begun extension of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics to fractal porous media which are specified by a mass (or spatial) fractal dimension D, a surface fractal dimension d, and a resolution lengthscale R. The focus is on pre-fractal media (i.e., those with lower and upper cut-offs) through a theory based on dimensional regularization, in which D is also the order of fractional integrals employed to state global balance laws. In effect, the global forms of governing equations may be cast in forms involving conventional (integer-order) integrals, while the local forms are expressed through partial differential equations with derivatives of integer order but containing coefficients involving D, d and R. Here we first generalize the principles of virtual work, virtual displacement and virtual stresses, which in turn allow us to extend the minimum energy theorems of elasticity theory. Next, we generalize the extremum principles of elasto-plastic and rigid-plastic bodies. In all the cases, the derived relations depend explicitly on D, d and R, and, upon setting D = 3 and d = 2, they reduce to conventional forms of governing equations for continuous media with Euclidean geometries.