Hysteresis and the Dynamic Elasticity of Consolidated Granular Materials

Quasistatic elasticity measurements on rocks show them to be strikingly nonlinear and to have elastic hysteresis with end point memory. When the model for this quasistatic elasticity is extended to the description of nonlinear dynamic elasticity the elastic elements responsible for the hysteresis dominate the behavior. Consequently, in a resonant bar, driven to nonlinearity, the frequency shift and the attenuation are predicted to be nonanalytic functions of the strain field. A resonant bar experiment yielding results in substantial qualitative and quantitative accord with these predictions is reported.