Appendix A

Invariants of second-order tensors

A.l Principal invariants

Given any second-order Cartesian tensor a with components expressed as

the principal values of a, denoted as al ,a2,and a3,may be computed from the solution
of the eigenproblem
(A4

,q(") =

in which the (right) eigenvectors q(") denote principal directions for the associated
eigenvalue a,. Non-trivial solutions of Eq. (A.2) require
(all

det

- a)

a21
a3 1

I1u

= a11a22

+ a22a33 + a33411

012

(a22

-a)

a32

a13
a23
(a33

-a)

- a12a21 - a23a32 - a31a13

('4.5)

111, = alla22a33 - aIla23a32 - a22a31a13 - a33a12a21 + a12a23a31 + a21a32a13

= det a

The quantities I,, II,, and 111, are called the principal invariants of a. The roots of
Eq. (A.4) give the principal values un1.

Moment invariants 433

The invariants for the deviator of a may be obtained by using

where ii is the mean defined as

Substitution of Eq. (A.6) into Eq. (A.2) gives

or
,tq(m)

=(

am

= u

q()

(A.9)

which yields a cubic equation for principal values of the deviator given as

( 4 4 3 + 11&u:,- 111:

=0

(A.10)

where invariants of a are denoted as I:, II&,and 111:.

Since the deviator a differ from the total a by a mean term only, we observe from
Eq. (A.9) that the directions of their principal values coincide, and the three principal
values are related through
u j = u : + ~ ; i = 1,2,3

(A.11)

Moreover Eq. (A. 10) generally has a closed-form solution which may be constructed
by using the Cardon formula.2
The definition of a given by Eq. (A.6) yields
I

Ia=u11+$12+u;3=0

(A.12)

Using this result, the second invariant of the deviator may be shown to have the
indicial form3
11 - - 1 a!.a..
a -

(A.13)

2 rJJr

The third invariant is again given by

111:

= det a

(A.14)

however, we show in Sec. A.2 that this invariant may be written in a form which is
easier to use in many applications (e.g. yield functions for elasto-plastic materials).

A.2 Moment invariants

It is also possible to write the invariants in a form known as moment i n ~ u r i a n t s . ~
The moment invariants are denoted as I,,
Ilia, and are defined by the indicial
forms

n,,

Ia

= 0..
II 7

..a,.

a Z 12. U (I I

111a =a..a.
3 (I j k akr

(A.15)

434 Appendix A

We observe that moment invariants are directly related to the truce of products of a.
The trace (tr) of a matrix is defined as the sum of its diagonal elements. Thus, the
first three moment invariants may be written in matrix form (using a square matrix
for a) as
-

ITI, = f tr (aaa)

11a -1
- 2 tr(aa),

I, = tr(a),

(A. 16)

The moment invariants may be related to the principal invariants as4

-

I, = I,,
I, = I,,

n, = 4 1: - 11,,
11, = 4
no,
-

111, = 111, - f 1:
111, = 111,

+ I,II,
- -

1: - I,II,

(A.17)

Using Eq. (A.12) and the identities given in Eq. (A.17) we can immediately observe
that the principal invariants and the moment invariants for a deviatoric second-order
tensor are related through

11; =

-nb

and

111:

= ITIb = det a

(A.18)

A.3 Derivatives of invariants

We often also need to compute the derivative of the invariants with respect to their
components and this is only possible when all components are treated independently
- that is, we do not use any symmetry, if present. From the definitions of the principal
and moment invariants given above, it is evident that derivatives of the moment
invariants are the easiest to compute since they are given in concise indicia1 form.
Derivatives of principal invariants can be computed from these by using the identities
given in Eqs (A.17) and (A.18).
The first derivatives of the principal invariants for symmetric second-order tensors
may be expressed in a matrix form directly, as shown by Nayak and Z i e n k i e w i c ~ ; ~ ~ ~
however, second derivatives from these are not easy to construct and we now
prefer the methods given here.

A.3.1 First derivatives of invariants

The first derivative of each moment invariant may be computed by using Eq. (A. 15).
For the first invariant we obtain

aT,

-= 6,

dfl,

(A.19)

Similarly, for the second moment invariant we get

an,

-= flji

dfl,

(A.20)

and for the third moment invariant

8111,

-=a.
da,

j k f l ki

(A.21)

Derivatives of invariants 435

Using the identities, the derivative of the principal invariants may be written in
indicia1 form as

The third invariant may also be shown to have the representation3

(A.23)
where a; is the inverse (transposed) of the a, tensor. Thus, in matrix form we may
write the derivatives as

ail,
am,
-- - III,aPT
(A.24)
-=I,l-a,
da
da
da
where here 1 denotes a 3 x 3 identity matrix.
The expression for the derivative of the determinant of a second-order tensor is of
particular use as we shall encounter this in dealing with volume change in finite deformation problems and in plasticity yield functions and flow rules.
Performing the same steps for the invariants of the deviator stress yields

dI,= 1,

with only a sign change occurring in the second invariant to obtain the derivative of
principal invariants from derivatives of moment invariants.
Often the derivatives of the invariants of a deviator tensor are needed with respect
to the tensor itself, and these may be computed as
(A.26)
where
(A.27)
Combining the two expressions yields
(A.28)

A.3.2 Second derivatives

In developments of tangent tensors we need second derivatives of the invariants.
These may be computed directly from Eqs (A. 19)-(A.21) by standard operations.
The second derivatives of I,, IIQ, 111, yield

436 Appendix A

The computations for principal invariants follow directly from the above using the
identities given in Eqs (A.17) and (A.18). Also, all results may be transformed to the
vector form used extensively in this volume for the finite element constructions. These
steps are by now a standard process and are left as an excercise for the reader.

References
1. H.M. Westergaard. Theory of Elasticity and Plasticity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1952.
2. W.H. Press et al. (eds), Numerical Recipes in Fortran: The Art of Scient$c Computing, 2nd
edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992.
3. I.H. Shames and F.A. Cozzarelli. Elastic and Inelastic Stress Analysis, revised edition,
Taylor & Francis, Washington, DC, 1997.
4. J.L. Ericksen. Tensor fields. In S. Fliigge (ed.), Encyclopedia of Physics, Volume III/I,
Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1960.
5. G.C. Nayak and O.C. Zienkiewicz. Convenient forms of stress invariants for plasticity.
Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 98(ST4), 949-53, 1972.
6. O.C. Zienkiewicz and R.L. Taylor. The Finite Element Method, 4th edition, Volume 2,
McGraw-Hill, London, 1991.