The Spatial Variation of LURR and Seismic Tendency in Western United States

Load-Unload Response Ratio (LURR) is a new promising approach to earthquake prediction. In the previous years, a series of successful medium-term predictions have been made for strong earthquakes on the Chinese mainland using this method. In order to investigate whether the LURR method applies to different tectonic regimes, i.e., whether it is universal, the San Andreas Fault and its vicinities are chosen as the study region in this paper. The spatial variation of LURR in the western United States (30°～50°N, 100°～130°W) is studied in detail and the earthquake tendency in this region is discussed based on historic earthquake cases.

Application of Load/Unload Response Ratio in the Study of Seismicity in the Region of Iran

The variation of Load/Unload Response Ratio (LURR) against time for earthquakes in Kerman Province, Iran, on February 22, 2005, M6.4 and in Lorestan Province, Iran, on March 31, 2006, M6.1, has been calculated and analysed in this paper. The tempo-spatial scanning of LURR in the region of Iran during January 1, 2003 to March 31, 2006 has been conducted, with 1 year as a time-window, 1 month as a time-step, and the comparison of the LURR anomalous regions in 2004 with the actual earthquakes with M≥5.0 in the next year (2005) is also given, which shows that 11 earthquakes with M≥5.0 occurred in LURR anomalous regions while 12 earthquakes with M≥5.0 in LURR regions in 2005. Furthermore, the seismicity in this region is studied by investigating the evolvement of the anomalous LURR regions.

An Elasto-plastic Damage Constitutive Theory Based on Pair Functional Potentials and Slip Mechanism

The deformation work rate can be expressed by the time rate of pair functional potentials which describe the energy of materi- als in terms of atomic bonds and atom embedding interactions. According to Cauchy-Born rule, the relations between the micro- scopic deformations of atomic bonds and electron gas and macroscopic deformation are established. Further, atomic bonds are grouped according to their directions, and atomic bonds in the same direction are simplified as a spring-bundle component. Atom embedding interactions in unit reference volume are simplified as a cubage component. Consequently, a material model com- posed of spring-bundle components and a cubage component is established. Since the essence of damage is the decrease and loss of atomic bonding forces, the damage effect can be reflected by the response functions of these two kinds of components. For- mulating the mechanical responses of two kinds of components, the corresponding elasto-damage constitutive equations are de- rived. Considering that slip is the main plastic deformation mechanism of polycrystalline metals, the slip systems of crystal are extended to polycrystalline, and the slip components are proposed to describe the plastic deformation. Based on the decomposition of deformation gradient and combining the plastic response with the elasto-damage one, the elasto-plastic damage constitutive equations are derived. As a result, a material model iormulated with spring-bundle components, a cubage component and slip components is established. Different from phenomenological constitutive theories, the mechanical property of materials depends on the property of components rather than that directly obtained on the representative volume element. The effect of finite deformation is taken into account in this model. Parameter calibration procedure and the basic characteristics of this model are discussed.

The elasto-damage theory of the components assembling model

The potential energy in materials is well approximated by pair functional which is composed of pair potentials and embedding energy. During calculating material potential energy, the orientational component and the volumetric component are derived respectively from pair potentials and embedding energy. The sum of energy of all these two kinds of components is the material potential. No matter how microstructures change, damage or fracture, at the most level, they are all the changing and breaking atomic bonds. As an abstract of atomic bonds, these components change their stiffness during damaging. Material constitutive equations have been formulated by means of assembling all components' response functions. This material model is called the component assembling model. Theoretical analysis and numerical computing indicate that the proposed model has the capacity of reproducing some results satisfactorily, with the advantages of great conceptual simplicity, physical explicitness, and intrinsic induced anisotropy, etc.

A physical mechanism based investigation on the elasto-plastic-damage behavior of anisotropic aluminum alloys under finite deformation

The elasto-plastic-damage behavior of anisotropic aluminum alloys is investigated under finite deformation using a physical mechanism based constitutive model.With an application to the structural calculation,the present model is used to describe and analyze the mechanical response of anisotropic 6260-T6 aluminum alloy extrusions.For the tensile specimens extracted along three different material orientations from the extruded aluminum profile,twelve simulations are carried out covering four different specimen geometries.The simulation results in force-displacement response and central logarithmic axial strain evolution are compared with experimental results.From the comparisons,it can be concluded that the present model has the capacity to describe the behavior of anisotropic material.From the force-displacement curves,the anisotropy is observed in different material orientations,and the physical mechanism of anisotropy is analyzed.