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This paper aims to quantitatively relate the energy dissipated at a shock wave in a nonlinearly elastic bar to the energy in the oscillations in two related dissipationless, dispersive systems. In contrast to a phase boundary, there is no kinetic relation associated with a shock wave. Three one-dimensional dynamic impact problems are studied: Problem 1 concerns a nonlinearly elastic bar, Problem 2 a discrete chain of particles, and Problem 3 a continuum with a strain gradient term in the constitutive relation. In the impact problem considered, the free boundary of each initially quiescent body is subjected to a sudden velocity that is then held constant for all subsequent time. There is energy dissipation at the shock in Problem 1 but Problems 2 and 3 are conservative. Problem 1 is solved analytically, Problem 2 numerically and an approximate solution to Problem 3 is constructed using modulation theory. The rate of increase of the oscillatory energy in Problems 2 and 3 are calculated and compared with the dissipation rate at the shock in Problem 1. The results indicate that the former is a good measure of the latter.

Polymerization of dendritic actin networks underlies important mechanical processes in cell biology such as the protrusion of lamellipodia, propulsion of growth cones in dendrites of neurons, intracellular transport of organelles and pathogens, among others. The forces required for these mechanical functions have been deduced from mechano-chemical models of actin polymerization; most models are focused on single growing filaments, and only a few address polymerization of filament networks through simulations. Here we propose a continuum model of surface growth and filament nucleation to describe polymerization of dendritic actin networks. The model describes growth and elasticity in terms of macroscopic stresses, strains and filament density rather than focusing on individual filaments. The microscopic processes underlying polymerization are subsumed into kinetic laws characterizing the change of filament density and the propagation of growing surfaces. This continuum model can predict the evolution of actin networks in disparate experiments. A key conclusion of the analysis is that existing laws relating force to polymerization speed of single filaments cannot predict the response of growing networks. Therefore a new kinetic law, consistent with the dissipation inequality, is proposed to capture the evolution of dendritic actin networks under different loading conditions. This model may be extended to other settings involving a more complex interplay between mechanical stresses and polymerization kinetics, such as the growth of networks of microtubules, collagen filaments, intermediate filaments and carbon nanotubes.

Actin growth is a fundamental biophysical process and it is, at the same time, a prototypical example of diffusion-mediated surface growth. We formulate a coupled chemo-mechanical, one-dimensional growth model encompassing both material accretion and ablation. A solid bar composed of bound actin monomers is fixed at one end and connected to an elastic device at the other. This spring-like device could, for example, be the cantilever tip of an atomic force microscope. The compressive force applied by the spring on the bar increases as the solid grows and affects the rate of growth. The mechanical behaviour of the bar, the diffusion of free actin monomers in a surrounding solvent and the kinetic growth laws at the accreting/ablating ends are accounted for. The constitutive response of actin is modeled by a convex but otherwise arbitrary elastic strain energy density function. Treadmilling solutions, characterized by a constant length of the continuously evolving body, are investigated. Existence and stability results are condensed in the form of simple formulas and their physical implications are discussed., Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures

The peridynamic model of a solid does not involve spatial gradients of the displacement field and is therefore well suited for studying defect propagation. Here, bond-based peridynamic theory is used to study the equilibrium and steady propagation of a lattice defect -- a kink -- in one dimension. The material transforms locally, from one state to another, as the kink passes through. The kink is in equilibrium if the applied force is less than a certain critical value that is calculated, and propagates if it exceeds that value. The kinetic relation giving the propagation speed as a function of the applied force is also derived. In addition, it is shown that the dynamical solutions of certain differential-equation-based models of a continuum are the same as those of the peridynamic model provided the micromodulus function is chosen suitably. A formula for calculating the micromodulus function of the equivalent peridynamic model is derived and illustrated. This ability to replace a differential-equation-based model with a peridynamic one may prove useful when numerically studying more complicated problems such as those involving multiple and interacting defects.

Surface growth, by association or dissociation of material on the boundaries of a body, is ubiquitous in both natural and engineering systems. It is the fundamental mechanism by which biological materials grow, starting from the level of a single cell, and is increasingly applied in engineering processes for fabrication and self-assembly. A significant complexity in describing the kinetics of such processes arises due to their inherent coupled interaction with the diffusing constituents that are needed to sustain the growth, and the influence of local stresses on the growth rates. Moreover, changes in concentration of solvent within the bulk of the body, generated by diffusion, can affect volumetric changes, thus leading to an additional interacting growth mechanism. In this paper we present a general theoretical framework that captures these complexities to describe the kinetics of surface growth while accounting for coupled diffusion. Then, by combination of analytical and numerical tools, applied to a simple growth geometry, we show that the evolution of such growth processes rapidly tends towards a universal path that is independent of initial conditions. This path, on which surface growth mechanisms and diffusion act harmoniously, can be extended to analytically portray the evolution of a body from inception up to a treadmilling state, in which addition and removal of material are balanced., Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures

Taking the cue from experiments on actin growth on spherical beads, we formulate and solve a model problem describing the accretion of an incompressible elastic solid on a rigid sphere due to attachment of diffusing free particles. One of the peculiar characteristics of this problem is that accretion takes place on the interior surface that separates the body from its support rather than on its exterior surface, and hence is responsible for stress accumulation. Simultaneously, ablation takes place at the outer surface where material is removed from the body. As the body grows, mechanical effects associated with the build-up of stress and strain energy slow down accretion and promote ablation. Eventually, the system reaches a point where internal accretion is balanced by external ablation. The present study is concerned with this stationary regime called "treadmilling". The principal ingredients of our model are: a nonstandard choice of the reference configuration, which allows us to cope with the continually evolving material structure; and a driving force and a kinetic law for accretion/ablation that involves the difference in chemical potential, strain energy and the radial stress. By combining these ingredients we arrive at an algebraic system which governs the stationary treadmilling state. We establish the conditions under which this system has a solution and we show that this solution is unique. Moreover, by an asymptotic analysis we show that for small beads the thickness of the solid is proportional to the radius of the support and is strongly affected by the stiffness of the solid, whereas for large beads the stiffness of the solid is essentially irrelevant, the thickness being proportional to a characteristic length that depends on the parameters that govern diffusion and accretion kinetics.

The equation of motion of a general class of macroscopic traffic flow models is linearized around a steady uniform flow. A closed-form solution of a boundary-initial value problem is obtained, and it is used to describe several phenomena. Specifically, the scenarios examined involve a smooth velocity field in stop-and-go traffic, a discontinuous velocity field with shock waves in a traffic light problem, and discontinuous displacement fields in a problem where a single platoon of vehicles splits into two, and later merges back into one.