Stress analysis of a two-phase composite having a negative-stiffness inclusion in two dimensions

Recent development in composites containing phase-transforming particles, such as vanadium dioxide or barium titanate, reveals the overall stiffness and viscoelastic damping of the composites may be unbounded (Lakes et al. 2001, Jaglinski et al. 2007). Negative stiffness is induced from phase transformation predicted by the Landau phase transformation theory. Although this unbounded phenomenon is theoretically supported with the composite homogenization theory, detailed stress analyses of the composites are still lacking. In this work, we analyze the stress distribution of the Hashin-Shtrikman (HS) composite and its two-dimensional variant, namely a circular inclusion in a square plate, under the assumption that the Young's modulus of the inclusion is negative. Assumption of negative stiffness is a priori in the present analysis. For stress analysis, a closed form solution for the HS model and finite element solutions for the 2D composite are presented. A static loading condition is adopted to estimate the effective modulus of the composites by the ratio of stress to average strain on the loading edges. It is found that the interfacial stresses between the circular inclusion and matrix increase dramatically when the negative stiffness is so tuned that overall stiffness is unbounded. Furthermore, it is found that stress distributions in the inclusion are not uniform, contrary to Eshelby's theorem, which states, for two-phase, infinite composites, the inclusion's stress distribution is uniform when the shape of the inclusion has higher symmetry than an ellipse. The stability of the composites is discussed from the viewpoint of deterioration of perfect interface conditions due to excessive interfacial stresses.