A Geometric Theory of Growth Mechanics

TL;DR

This paper develops a geometric framework for modeling growth in solids, incorporating evolving metrics and covariant governing equations, and connects it to classical growth decomposition methods.

Contribution

It introduces a covariant geometric theory of growth mechanics with evolving metrics, linking it to traditional multiplicative decomposition and deriving linearized growth equations.

Findings

Identifies growth distributions that avoid residual stresses in isotropic growth.

Derives covariant governing equations using invariance principles.

Establishes a connection between geometric theory and classical multiplicative decomposition.

Abstract

In this paper we formulate a geometric theory of the mechanics of growing solids. Bulk growth is modeled by a material manifold with an evolving metric. Time dependence of metric represents the evolution of the stress-free (natural) configuration of the body in response to changes in mass density and "shape". We show that time dependency of material metric will affect the energy balance and the entropy production inequality; both the energy balance and the entropy production inequality have to be modified. We then obtain the governing equations covariantly by postulating invariance of energy balance under time-dependent spatial diffeomorphisms. We use the principle of maximum entropy production in deriving an evolution equation for the material metric. In the case of isotropic growth, we find those growth distributions that do not result in residual stresses. We then look at Lagrangian field theory of growing elastic solids. We will use the Lagrange-d'Alembert's principle with Rayleigh's dissipation functions to derive all the governing equations. We make an explicit connection between our geometric theory and the conventional multiplicative decomposition of deformation gradient $\mathbf{F}=\mathbf{F}_e\mathbf{F}_g$ into growth and elastic parts. We linearize the nonlinear theory and derive a linearized theory of growth mechanics. Finally, we obtain the stress-free growth distributions in the linearized theory.