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Now showing 1 - 10 of 21
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    Balanced-Viscosity solutions for multi-rate systems
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2014) Mielke, Alexander; Rossi, Riccarda; Savaré, Giuseppe
    Several mechanical systems are modeled by the static momentum balance for the displacement u coupled with a rate-independent flow rule for some internal variable z. We consider a class of abstract systems of ODEs which have the same structure, albeit in a finite-dimensional setting, and regularize both the static equation and the rate-independent flow rule by adding viscous dissipation terms with coefficients α and , where 0<<1 and α>0 is a fixed parameter. Therefore for α different from 1 the variables u and z have different relaxation rates. We address the vanishing-viscosity analysis as tends to 0 in the viscous system. We prove that, up to a subsequence, (reparameterized) viscous solutions converge to a parameterized curve yielding a Balanced Viscosity solution to the original rate-independent system and providing an accurate description of the system behavior at jumps. We also give a reformulation of the notion of Balanced Viscosity solution in terms of a system of subdifferential inclusions, showing that the viscosity in u and the one in z are involved in the jump dynamics in different ways, according to whether α >1, α=1, or 0<α<1.
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    A temperature-dependent phase-field model for phase separation and damage
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Heinemann, Christian; Kraus, Christiane; Rocca, Elisabetta; Rossi, Riccarda
    In this paper we study a model for phase separation and damage in thermoviscoelastic materials. The main novelty of the paper consists in the fact that, in contrast with previous works in the literature (cf., e.g., [21, 22]), we encompass in the model thermal processes, nonlinearly coupled with the damage, concentration and displacement evolutions. More in particular, we prove the existence of entropic weak solutions, resorting to a solvability concept first introduced in [10] in the framework of Fourier-Navier-Stokes systems and then recently employed in [9, 38] for the study of PDE systems for phase transition and damage. Our global-intime existence result is obtained by passing to the limit in a carefully devised time-discretization scheme.
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    From adhesive to brittle delamination in visco-elastodynamics
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2016) Rossi, Riccarda; Thomas, Marita
    In this paper we analyze a system for brittle delamination between two visco-elastic bodies, also subject to inertia, which can be interpreted as a model for dynamic fracture. The rate-independent flow rule for the delamination parameter is coupled with the momentum balance for the displacement, including inertia. This model features a nonsmooth constraint ensuring the continuity of the displacements outside the crack set, which is marked by the support of the delamination parameter. A weak solvability concept, generalizing the notion of energetic solution for rate-independent systems to the present mixed rate-dependent/rate-independent frame, is proposed. Via refined variational convergence techniques, existence of solutions is proved by passing to the limit in approximating systems which regularize the nonsmooth constraint by conditions for adhesive contact. The presence of the inertial term requires the design of suitable recovery spaces small enough to provide compactness but large enough to recover the information on the crack set in the limit.
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    Balanced-Viscosity solutions to infinite-dimensional multi-rate systems
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2021) Mielke, Alexander; Rossi, Riccarda
    We consider generalized gradient systems with rate-independent and rate-dependent dissipation potentials. We provide a general framework for performing a vanishing-viscosity limit leading to the notion of parametrized and true Balanced-Viscosity solutions that include a precise description of the jump behavior developing in this limit. Distinguishing an elastic variable $u$ having a viscous damping with relaxation time $eps^alpha$ and an internal variable $z$ with relaxation time $eps$ we obtain different limits for the three cases $alpha in (0,1)$, $alpha=1$ and $alpha>1$. An application to a delamination problem shows that the theory is general enough to treat nontrivial models in continuum mechanics.
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    From nonlinear to linear elasticity in a coupled rate-dependent/independent system for brittle delamination
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2017) Rossi, Riccarda; Thomas, Marita
    We revisit the weak, energetic-type existence results obtained in [RT15] for a system for rateindependent, brittle delamination between two visco-elastic, physically nonlinear bulk materials and explain how to rigorously extend such results to the case of visco-elastic, linearly elastic bulk materials. Our approximation result is essentially based on deducing the MOSCO-convergence of the functionals involved in the energetic formulation of the system. We apply this approximation result in two different situations at small strains: Firstly, to pass from a nonlinearly elastic to a linearly elastic, brittle model on the time-continuous level, and secondly, to pass from a time-discrete to a time-continuous model using an adhesive contact approximation of the brittle model, in combination with a vanishing, super-quadratic regularization of the bulk energy. The latter approach is beneficial if the model also accounts for the evolution of temperature.
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    BV solutions and viscosity approximations of rate-independent systems
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2009) Mielke, Alexander; Rossi, Riccarda; Savaré, Giuseppe
    In the nonconvex case solutions of rate-independent systems may develop jumps as a function of time. To model such jumps, we adopt the philosophy that rate independence should be considered as limit of systems with smaller and smaller viscosity. For the finite-dimensional case we study the vanishing-viscosity limit of doubly nonlinear equations given in terms of a differentiable energy functional and a dissipation potential which is a viscous regularization of a given rate-independent dissipation potential. The resulting definition of `BV solutions' involves, in a nontrivial way, both the rate-independent and the viscous dissipation potential, which play a crucial role in the description of the associated jump trajectories. We shall prove a general convergence result for the time-continuous and for the time-discretized viscous approximations and establish various properties of the limiting $BV$ solutions. In particular, we shall provide a careful description of the jumps and compare the new notion of solutions with the related concepts of energetic and local solutions to rate-independent systems.
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    Nonsmooth analysis of doubly nonlinear evolution equations
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2011) Mielke, Alexander; Rossi, Riccarda; Savaré, Giuseppe
    In this paper we analyze a broad class of abstract doubly nonlinear evolution equations in Banach spaces, driven by nonsmooth and nonconvex energies. We provide some general sufficient conditions, on the dissipation potential and the energy functional, for existence of solutions to the related Cauchy problem. We prove our main existence result by passing to the limit in a time-discretization scheme with variational techniques. Finally, we discuss an application to a material model in finite-strain elasticity.
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    Balanced viscosity (BV) solutions to infinite-dimensional rate-independent systems
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2013) Mielke, Alexander; Rossi, Riccarda; Savaré, Giuseppe
    Balanced Viscosity solutions to rate-independent systems arise as limits of regularized rate-independent flows by adding a superlinear vanishing-viscosity dissipation. We address the main issue of proving the existence of such limits for infinite-dimensional systems and of characterizing them by a couple of variational properties that combine a local stability condition and a balanced energy-dissipation identity. A careful description of the jump behavior of the solutions, of their differentiability properties, and of their equivalent representation by time rescaling is also presented. Our techniques rely on a suitable chain-rule inequality for functions of bounded variation in Banach spaces, on refined lower semicontinuity-compactness arguments, and on new BV-estimates that are of independent interest.
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    Variational convergence of gradient flows and rate-independent evolutions in metric spaces
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2012) Mielke, Alexander; Rossi, Riccarda; Savaré, Giuseppe
    We study the asymptotic behaviour of families of gradient flows in a general metric setting, when the metric-dissipation potentials degenerate in the limit to a dissipation with linear growth. We present a general variational definition of BV solutions to metric evolutions, showing the different characterization of the solution in the absolutely continuous regime, on the singular Cantor part, and along the jump transitions. By using tools of metric analysis, BV functions and blow-up by time rescaling, we show that this variational notion is stable with respect to a wide class of perturbations involving energies, distances, and dissipation potentials. As a particular application, we show that BV solutions to rate-independent problems arise naturally as a limit of p-gradient flows, p>1, when the exponents p converge to 1.
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    Entropic solutions to a thermodynamically consistent PDE system for phase transitions and damage
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2014) Rocca, Elisabetta; Rossi, Riccarda
    In this paper we analyze a PDE system modelling (non-isothermal) phase transitions and damage phenomena in thermoviscoelastic materials. The model is thermodynamically consistent: in particular, no small perturbation assumption is adopted, which results in the presence of quadratic terms on the right-hand side of the temperature equation, only estimated in L1. The whole system has a highly nonlinear character. We address the existence of a weak notion of solution, referred to as entropic, where the temperature equation is formulated with the aid of an entropy inequality, and of a total energy inequality. This solvability concept reflects the basic principles of thermomechanics as well as the thermodynamical consistency of the model. It allows us to obtain global-in-time existence theorems without imposing any restriction on the size of the initial data. We prove our results by passing to the limit in a time discretization scheme, carefully tailored to the nonlinear features of the PDE system (with its entropic formulation), and of the a priori estimates performed on it. Our time-discrete analysis could be useful towards the numerical study of this model.