Journal of Theoretical
and Applied Mechanics

52, 1, pp. 37-46, Warsaw 2014

Ubiquitiform in applied mechanics

Zhuo-Cheng Ou, Guan-Ying Li, Zhuo-Ping Duan, Feng-Lei Huang

We demonstrate that a physical object in nature should not be described as a fractal, despite an ideal mathematical object, rather a ubiquitiform (a terminology coined here for a finite order self-similar or self-affine structure). It is shown mathematically that a ubiquitiform must be of integral dimension, and that the Hausdorff dimension of the initial element of a fractal changes abruptly at the point at infinity, which results in divergence of the integral dimensional measure of the fractal and makes the fractal approximation to a ubiquitiform unreasonable. Therefore, instead of the existing fractal theory in applied mechanics; a new type of ubiquitiformal one is needed.
Keywords: ubiquitiform; fractal; Hausdorff dimension