NONLINEAR ELASTIC PROPERTIES OF STRUCTURALLY INHOMOGENEOUS MATERIALS - A NUMERICAL EXPERIMENT

The nonlinear elastic properties of a structurally inhomogeneous medium were investigated in a numerical experiment. A network of masses (nodes) connected by nonlinear springs was used as a model of such a medium. Expressions for the linear and nonlinear coefficients of elasticity and the second and third order nonlinearity parameters were obtained as functions of defect concentrations (number of lacking nodes) for two-dimensional triangular and hexagonal networks. The scaling behavior of nonlinear elasticity coefficients is investigated near the percolation point, where all elasticity coefficients vanish.