Elastic Solution of a Polygon-Shaped Inclusion With a Polynomial Eigenstrain

This paper presents the Eshelby's tensor of a polygonal inclusion with a polynomial eigenstrain, which can provide an elastic solution to an arbitrary, convex inclusion with a continuously distributed eigenstrain by the Taylor series approximation. The Eshelby's tensor for plane strain problem is derived from the fundamental solution of isotropic Green's function with the Hadmard regularization, which is composed of the integrals of the derivatives of the harmonic and biharmonic potentials over the source domain. Using the Green's theorem, they are converted to two line (contour) integrals over the polygonal cross section. This paper evaluates them by direct analytical integrals. Following Mura's work, this paper formulates the method to derive linear, quadratic, and higher order of the Eshelby's tensor in the polynomial form for arbitrary, convex polygonal shapes of inclusions. Numerical case studies were performed to verify the analytic results with the original Eshelby's solution for a uniform eigenstrain in an ellipsoidal domain. It is of significance to consider higher order terms of eigenstrain for the polygon-shape inclusion problem because the eigenstrain distribution is generally non-uniform when Eshelby's equivalent inclusion method is used. The stress disturbance due to a triangle particle in an infinite domain is demonstrated by comparison with the results of the finite element method (FEM). The present solution paves the way to accurately simulate the particle-particle, partial-boundary interactions of polygon-shape particles.

Automated summary

This paper introduces the method of deriving the Eshelby tensor of a polygonal inclusion with a polynomial eigenstrain, providing an elastic solution through Taylor series approximation. The results were validated through analytical integrals and numerical case studies. Higher order terms of eigenstrain are found to be important for the problem of polygonal inclusions.