Determination of the anisotropic elasticity tensor by mechanical spectroscopy

Abstract

A method is proposed to identify the fully anisotropic elasticity tensor by applying the impulse excitation technique. A specially designed batch of several differently oriented bar-shaped specimens with rectangular cross section is analyzed with respect to the eigenfrequencies of their fundamental flexural and torsional modes. Estimations based on the equations for the calculation of the isotropic Young’s modulus and the shear modulus from the ASTM standard allow a first approximation of the elasticity tensor from a selected subset of the measured eigenfrequencies. Subsequently, a more precise determination of the elasticity tensor is achieved by a numerical modal analysis using the finite element method. In this course, a Newton–Raphson optimization method is applied to solve the inverse problem. The proposed approach is demonstrated on a batch of specimen fabricated from the nickel-base alloy IN718 by selective laser melting.