Dynamical behaviour of thermoelastic solids undergoing phase transitions

This paper summarizes some recent work carried out jointly by the author and R. Abeyaratne of MIT on the continuum modeling of the macroscopic effect of stress-induced phase transitions in thermoelastic solids. Attention is focussed on one-dimensional tensile bars composed of two-phase thermoelastic materials, and emphasis is placed on the manner in which the notions of kinetics and nucleation are imported into continuum mechanics from materials science. Although the response to dynamic loading is the principal objective, the predictive capability of the model with respect to quasi-static experiments involving shape-memory alloys is also discussed. In the case of dynamic loading, the potential relevance of this model for the interpretation of flyer-plate impact experiments in ceramics and in shape-memory single crystals is described.