Hysteresis and Phase Transitions - (Applied Mathematical Sciences) by Martin Brokate & Jürgen Sprekels (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Hysteresis is an exciting and mathematically challenging phenomenon that oc- curs in rather different situations: jt, can be a byproduct offundamental physical mechanisms (such as phase transitions) or the consequence of a degradation or imperfection (like the play in a mechanical system), or it is built deliberately into a system in order to monitor its behaviour, as in the case of the heat control via thermostats. The delicate interplay between memory effects and the occurrence of hys- teresis loops has the effect that hysteresis is a genuinely nonlinear phenomenon which is usually non-smooth and thus not easy to treat mathematically. Hence it was only in the early seventies that the group of Russian scientists around M. A. Krasnoselskii initiated a systematic mathematical investigation of the phenomenon of hysteresis which culminated in the fundamental monograph Krasnoselskii-Pokrovskii (1983). In the meantime, many mathematicians have contributed to the mathematical theory, and the important monographs of 1. Mayergoyz (1991) and A. Visintin (1994a) have appeared. We came into contact with the notion of hysteresis around the year 1980.

From the Back Cover

This monograph contributes to the mathematical analysis of systems exhibiting hysteresis effects and phase transitions. Its main part begins with a detailed study of models for scalar rate independent hysteresis in the form of hysteresis operators. Applications to ferromagnetism, elastoplasticity and fatigue analysis are presented, and two representative distributed systems with hysteresis operator are discussed. The attention then shifts to the mechanisms of energy dissipation and transformation that induce a hysteretic behavior in continuous media undergoing phase transitions. After an introduction to phenomenological thermodynamic theories of phase transitions, in particular, the Landau-Ginzburg theory and phase field models, several specific models are discussed in detail. These include Falk's model for the hysteresis in shape memory alloys and the phase field models due to Caginalp and Penrose-Fife. The latter are studied both for conserved and non-conserved order parameters. A chapter presenting a mathematical model for the austenite-pearlite and austenite-martensite phase transitions in eutectoid carbon steels concludes the book.