Acoustic nonlinearity parameter due to microplasticity

Acoustic nonlinearity (which is quantified in terms of an absolute material parameter, the acoustic nonlinearity parameter, β) can be caused by several sources, one of which is the elastic-plastic deformation of the material. This paper develops a model to quantify the acoustic nonlinearity parameter due to elastic-plastic deformation. This new model is applicable to general anisotropic elastic-plastic materials with existing microplasticity strains due to either monotonic or cyclic loading. As an example, the developed model is applied to calculate the acoustic nonlinearity parameter of a single crystal copper specimen subjected to cyclic fatigue loading. It is found that the acoustic nonlinearity parameter of this specimen increases monotonically with increasing fatigue cycles.