Bouchbinder Eran, Langer J S
Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2009 Sep;80(3 Pt 1):031133. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.80.031133. Epub 2009 Sep 22.
We use the internal-variable, effective-temperature thermodynamics developed in two preceding papers to reformulate the shear-transformation-zone (STZ) theory of amorphous plasticity. As required by the preceding analysis, we make explicit approximations for the energy and entropy of the STZ internal degrees of freedom. We then show that the second law of thermodynamics constrains the STZ transition rates to have an Eyring form as a function of the effective temperature. Finally, we derive an equation of motion for the effective temperature for the case of STZ dynamics.