Statistical Thermodynamics of Crystal Plasticity

On thermodynamics of crystal plasticity

It is argued in this paper that there are three distinctive physical situations in which the continuum descriptions of crystal plasticity are conceptually different. They are determined by the properties of the random field of dislocation density. One of the cases corresponds to conventional plasticity theory. In this case the system energy possesses the energy density, and a formula for energy...

Thermodynamics of rate-independent plasticity

We show that the singular dissipative potential of the phenomenological rate-independent plasticity can be obtained by homogenization of a micro-model with quadratic dissipation. The essential ingredient making this reduction possible is a rugged energy landscape at the micro-scale, generating under external loading a regular cascade of subcritical bifurcations. Such landscape may appear as a r...

Statistical Thermodynamics - Fall 2009

Molecular theory can be considered as a preliminary to statistical physics. While the latter employs a more sophisticated formalism encompassing quantum-mechanical systems, the former operates with a classical ideal gas. Molecular theory studies the relation between the temperature of the gas and the kinetic energy of the molecules, pressure on the walls due to the impact of the molecules, dist...

Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics

Statistical thermodynamics of economic systems

We formulate thermodynamics of economic systems in terms of an arbitrary probability distribution for a conserved economic quantity. As in statistical physics, thermodynamic macroeconomic variables emerge as the mean value of microeconomic variables and their determination is reduced to the computation of the partition function, starting from an arbitrary function. Explicit hypothetical example...