Studies of the Growth and Collapse of Voids in Viscous Solids

Abstract

The growth and collapse of isolated voids in power-law viscous matrix materials are investigated. The study is restricted to axisymmetric remote stressing and to voids which are initially spheroidal with the axis of symmetry of the voids coincident with the axis of symmetry of the remote loading. Particular attention is given to the evolution of initially spherical voids, but the effect of initial void shape on subsequent void evolution is also investigated. For linearly viscous matrix materials, the voids evolve through spheroidal shapes and the work of Budiansky et al. (1982) provides the desired information about the history of void shape and volume. For nonlinear matrix materials, the void evolution is idealized as proceeding through a sequence of spheroidal shapes, and the rate of deformation for a given instant is evaluated using a Ritz procedure developed by Lee and Mear (1992). The results of the study demonstrate that the history of void volume and void shape is influenced significantly by the material nonlinearity, the remote stress state and the initial void aspect ratio.