On energetic changes due to configurational motion of standard continua

The appropriate thermodynamic setting for the combined configurational and deformational motion of standard continua is discussed in this paper. A key ingredient is an absolute (fixed) reference configuration, relative to which configurational and deformational changes (rates) with respect to the material (undeformed) and spatial (deformed) configurations, respectively, can be described in a unified fashion. In particular, we are interested in formulating the local as well as global measures of the energy dissipation due to configurational changes of a given physical system. It is believed that the presentation in this paper provides the following advantages: a unified kinematic and thermodynamic setting of the configurational and deformational motions, in particular the generic balance law accounting for configurational flux, increases the general clarity; the separation of the total dissipation in terms of the intrinsic change in elastic energy and in terms of the material dissipation that is induced by configurational changes becomes transparent. All results are obtained without any restrictions on dynamics, thermomechanical couplings, etc.