Constitutive equations

In physics and engineering, a constitutive equation or constitutive relation is a relation between two physical quantities (especially kinetic quantities as related to kinematic quantities) that is specific to a material or substance, and approximates the response of that material to external stimuli, usually as applied fields or forces. They are combined with other equations governing physical laws to solve physical problems; for example in fluid mechanics the flow of a fluid in a pipe, in solid state physics the response of a crystal to an electric field, or in structural analysis, the connection between applied stresses or forces to strains or deformations.

Some constitutive equations are simply phenomenological; others are derived from first principles. A common approximate constitutive equation frequently is expressed as a simple proportionality using a parameter taken to be a property of the material, such as electrical conductivity or a spring constant. However, it is often necessary to account for the directional dependence of the material, and the scalar parameter is generalized to a tensor. Constitutive relations are also modified to account for the rate of response of materials and their non-linear behavior. See the article Linear response function.

The first constitutive equation (constitutive law) was developed by Robert Hooke and is known as Hooke's law. It deals with the case of linear elastic materials. Following this discovery, this type of equation, often called a "stress-strain relation" in this example, but also called a "constitutive assumption" or an "equation of state" was commonly used. Walter Noll advanced the use of constitutive equations, clarifying their classification and the role of invariance requirements, constraints, and definitions of terms like "material", "isotropic", "aeolotropic", etc. The class of "constitutive relations" of the form stress rate = f (velocity gradient, stress, density) was the subject of Walter Noll's dissertation in 1954 under Clifford Truesdell.

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