fruitkiwi said:
Dear all,
I have problem on defining first principal stretch, second principal stretch and third principal stretch.
Hi fruitkiwi --
I've read through this thread, and some good points were made, as well as some confusion. Let me first address general confusion -- I will address your main question shortly.
If you were to do a tension test on your material, for example, and no rigid body rotation is present, then the "principal stretch" in the longitudinal direction would be "1" plus the quantity of engineering strain that is measured, as you know.
Strictly speaking, recall (from "polar decomposition") that
V (the left stretch tensor) and
U (the right stretch tensor) have the same eigenvalues and note that these scalar values (the eigenvalues, λ) are the principal stretches. This is standard terminology in continuum mechanics, as you know.
The eigenvalues of
V and the eigenvalues of
U would also be in the same order if no rigid body rotation is present.
fruitkiwi said:
Does it means in x-axis we definite it as first, y-axis is second, third is z axis?
Your question relates to the direction of these principal stretches.
The eigenvectors of
V and
U differ when rigid body rotation is present. The direction of principal stretch depends on whether you are working in "spatial" (
V) or "material" (
U) coordinates.
In other words, the values of λ are in a certain order and this order will differ, if rigid body rotation is present, depending on how you obtain your values of λ.
fruitkiwi said:
what if my load is applied on a cubic from the -y direction in a uniaxial testing tension, so my first principal stretch remains as x axis, or will it change?
It will be in the y direction.
This isn't really the important question though, in my opinion.
My question to you: what direction do the principal stretches act if you perform that tension test while simultaneously performing a rigid body rotation on the specimen?
The principal stretch magnitude along the length of the specimen is always "1" plus the measured engineering strain. This is one of your eigenvalues.
However, the direction of principal stretch (the order of your eigenvalues) will depend on how you go about calculating them (due to the rigid body rotation).
I recommend you solve such a problem (make one up). For example, start with
x1=-1/2X1,
x2=1/2X2,
x3=2X2. Draw what this looks like -- should look like a tension test with a 90degree rigid body motion. Find
F,
C,
B, their eigenvalues and eigenvectors --
etc. This is the great thing about strains (or "stretches") - you can see them!
I think that the comments regarding stress and isotropy,
etc., are important too, but I won't hijack. I have a feeling you already understand which strain measure and stress measures form appropriate pairs anyway.