Universal Elastic Anisotropy Index

Practically all elastic single crystals are anisotropic, which calls for an appropriate universal measure to quantify the extent of anisotropy. A review of the existing anisotropy measures in the literature leads to a conclusion that they lack universality in the sense that they are non-unique and ignore contributions from the bulk part of the elastic stiffness (or compliance) tensor. Proceeding from extremal principles of elasticity, we introduce a new universal anisotropy index that overcomes the above limitations. Furthermore, we establish special relationships between the proposed anisotropy index and the existing anisotropy measures for special cases. A new elastic anisotropy diagram is constructed for…