Equilibrium paths of a three-bar truss in finite elasticity with an application to graphene

Abstract

This paper presents the formulation of the equilibrium problem of a three-bar truss in the nonlinear context of finite elasticity. The bars are composed of a homogeneous, isotropic, and compressible hyperelastic material. The equilibrium equations in the deformed configuration are derived under the assumption of homogeneous deformations and the stability of the solutions is assessed through the energy criterion. The general formulation is then specialized for a compressible Mooney–Rivlin material. The results for both vertical and horizontal load cases show unexpected post-critical behaviors involving several branches, stable asymmetrical configurations, bifurcation, and snap-through. The three-bar truss studied here is not only a benchmark test for the numerical analysis of nonlinear truss structures, but also a representative system for the unit cell of the graphene hexagonal lattice. Therefore, an application to graphene is performed by simulating the covalent bonds between carbon atoms as the bars of the truss, characterized by the modified Morse potential. The results provide insights on the internal mechanisms that take place when graphene undergoes large in-plane deformations, whose influence should be considered when developing molecular mechanics and continuum models in nonlinear elasticity.