A thermomechanical formulation of finite element schemes for micropolar continua

Abstract

Recent studies highlighted the advantages of the thermomechanical approach for developing models of material behaviour. This approach ensures compliance with thermodynamical laws since constitutive relations are derived from a consideration of thermodynamical potentials. Interestingly, the same thermomechanical techniques can also be used to formulate the finite element models used to implement these constitutive relations. Thus the key advantage of this type of finite element formulation is that a direct link to the underlying physics of the problem is extended through to the model's implementation. Here, we show how the thermomechanical approach can be applied to finite element schemes for..