Glossary
Benefits from nonlinear constitutive laws in civil engineering

Law of behavior; constitutive relation

Mathematical model describing the interactions between stress and the response of a material or structure to that stress.

Non-linéarités matérielles; material non-linearities

All the phenomena on the scale of the material leading to a non-linear relationship between the stress and the response of the material to this stress.

Elasticity

Mechanical behavior of a material in which it returns to its original shape when the stress to which it is subjected is removed.

Anisotropy; anisotropy

Characteristic of a material that exhibits different mechanical behavior depending on its orientation with respect to the same load (same direction and same amplitude).

Tensor invariant; tensorial invariant

Scalar expressed as a function of the components of a tensor and having the property of invariance by change of...