Materials, Methods & Technologies, Volume 6, 2012

Abstract: A new irreducible decomposition method for elastic constant tensor is presented. Harmonic and other existing decomposition procedures in literature are elaborated and compared which have many engineering and scientific applications for anisotropic materials. For comparison purposes, numerical examples of each decomposition process are presented for the materials possessing different anisotropic elastic symmetry classes. For isotropic materials, an expression for the elastic constant tensor different than the traditional known form is given. Some misprints found in the literature are decomposed into two physically meaningful orthogonal parts by irreducible decomposition, while in is proved that these parts can be made orthogonal to each other. This case is a significant innovation in decomposition procedures in literature.