Mechanical Characterization of Materials and Wave Dispersion - 9781848211933

The challenge of carrying out mechanical characterization of materials is an important field of research and application covering everything from industrial tests using a variety of commercially available apparatus and also including research in a variety of frequency ranges which occasionally exceed three frequency decades. Current work also includes attempts to extend the frequency range without recourse to variations in ambient temperature conditions.

This book fills the gap between theoretical elastodynamic studies on wave dispersion phenomena produced in bounded samples on the one hand, and developments in instrumentation informed by elastic and/or viscoelastic material characterization using dynamic methods, on the other.

The authors begin their coverage with mechanical set-ups, then practical considerations related to various types of practical and realistic boundary conditions are discussed. Electronic instrumentation techniques and new aspects of signal processing are also presented. Special experimental and low cost set-ups working at up to 120,000 hertz are then discussed, along with the practical fabrication of specialized ferroelectric transducers.

Yvon Chevalier is Emeritus Professor at the Institut Superieur de Mecanique de Paris (SUPMECA), France. Since 2000 he has been coeditor-in-chief of the Mecanique et Industries journal, supported by the French Association of Mechanics. He is a well-known expert in the dynamics of composite materials and the propagation of waves in heterogenous materials. He also has extensive experience in the areas of hyper-elasticity and non-linear viscoelasticity of rubber materials.

Jean Tuong Vinh is Emeritus University Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Paris VI in France. He carries out research into theoretical viscoelasticity, non-linear functional Volterra series, computer algorithms in signal processing, frequency Hilbert transform, special impact testing, wave dispersion in rods and continuous elements and the solution of related inverse problems.