1 Work and some applications 1.1 Performed work It is assumed that the material responds elastically, It is not necessary to adopt linear-elastic behaviour. ‘A cube of material is considered with a unit volume, which is loaded unaxially by a stress o (see Fig. 1.1), The length 1 increases by an amount =. The strain ¢ develops gradually, because the load o is applied gently. lo — o o pre Fig. 1.1: Uniaxially loaded cube. ‘The work performed by this load, is determined as follows. Suppose that at a certain moment aload o is present, then a small increment do- causes the strain to increase by dé (see Fig. 1.2a). The existing load o performs an amount of work equal to ode. Therefore, the total amount of work performed equals: a with ¢=0(¢) a.) This is called the deformation energy per unit of volume. This amount of energy is indicated by the grey area in the o-¢ diagram (Fig. 1.2b). Deformation energy is potential energy, which is accumulated in the material a, o, do se. de @) b) Fig. 1.2: Potential energye Fig. 1.3: Complementary energy. aad with s=6(o) (2) In Fig. 1.3 the grey area represents the amount of complementary energy. In general, it is not easy to give a physical interpretation of the concept of complementary energy.