ABSTRACT
In 1995 Gurtin demonstrated a new role of configurational forces in modeling the laws of evolution and dynamics of interfaces during phase transitions, Gurtin (1995). If the standard Newtonian forces associated with continua are responsible for the motion of material points, the independent, additional configurational forces may be needed to describe an internal microstructure evolution. Configurational forces are related with the pseudo-momentum flux balance, which is an analog of Newtonian balances of forces. The pseudo-momentum flux, called also the Eshelby stress tensor, is responsible for an internal transport of the pseudo-momentum and undergoes the configurational balance.The evolution relation for some internal micro-structure, like an interfacial layer, can be formulated as the jump relation within the configurational balance (Gurtin 1995, eq. (5.11)):
Here [C] is the jump of the 3D Eshelby tensor over the interfacial layer, C is an Eshelby interfacial tensor which undergoes two-dimensional surface divergence, and e represents internal forces distributed over the interface. As a special form of eq. (1), Gurtin was able to retransform a general driving force equation to the condition of “motion-by-curvature”, an interface motion neglecting bulk behavior, a Stefan-type motion of a melting surface, etc.
