Displacement field (mechanics)

A displacement field is an assignment of displacement vectors for all points in a body that is displaced from one state to another.

Additional recommended knowledge

Weighing the right way

Essential Laboratory Skills Guide

Recognize and detect the effects of electrostatic charges on your balance

A displacement vector specifies the position of a point or a particle in reference to an origin or to a previous position.

Before considering displacement the body state before deformation must be defined. It is a state in which the coordinates of all body's points are known and described by function:

$\vec{R}_0: \Omega \rightarrow P$

where

$\vec{R}_0$ is a placement vector

Ω

are all the points of the body

P

are all the points in the space in which the body is present

Most often it is a state of body to which no forces are applied.

Then given any other state of this body in which coordinates of all its points are described as $\vec{R}_1$ the displacement field is the difference between two body states: