Representation of tensor functions using lower-order structural tensor set: three-dimensional theory

Abstract

The representation theory of tensor functions is a powerful mathematical tool for constitutive modeling of anisotropic materials. A major limitation of the traditional theory is that many point groups require fourth- or sixth-order structural tensors, which significantly impedes practical engineering applications. Recent advances have introduced a reformulated representation theory that enables the modeling of anisotropic materials using only lower-order structural tensors (i.e., second-order or lower). Building upon the reformulated theory, this work establishes the representations of tensor functions for three-dimensional centrosymmetric point groups. For each point group, we propose a lower-order structural tensor set and derive the representations of tensor functions explicitly. For scalar-valued and second-order symmetric tensor-valued functions, our theory is indeed applicable to all three-dimensional point groups because their representations are determined by the corresponding centrosymmetric groups. The representation theory presented here is broadly applicable for constitutive modeling of anisotropic materials.