Material equations for rock salt under mechanical and thermal load including treatment of boundary value problems by the finite element method

This paper is a first step in the development of thermodynamically consistent material equations for inelastic materials, such as polycrystalline rock salt. In this context it is of particular importance to reduce the number and the structure of the internal variables, in order to allow for a fit with available experimental data. As an example this is demonstrated in detail in the case of the so-called dislocation model. As physical non-linearities and in addition also geometrical non-linearities lead to an inhomogeneous deformation - and stress state even in the case of simple samples, boundary value problems have to be studied, in order to test the material equations. For this purpose the finite element method has been used. (orig./HP)