Reference configurations versus optimal rotations: a derivation of linear elasticity from finite elasticity for all traction forces (Q2043222): Difference between revisions

The position of linear elasticity with respect to finite elasticity has attracted interests in mechanics since the pionieering works of Signorini with his celebrated expansion method [\textit{A. Signorini}, Proc. 3rd Int. Congr. Appl.Mech. 2, 80--89 (1930); \textit{G. Capriz} and \textit{P. P. Guidugli}, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 57, 1--30 (1974; Zbl 0315.73062)]. At the beginning of this century, Dal Maso \textit{et al.} proposed a fresh approach to this old problem by using the powerful tool of gamma-convergence. In their fundamental paper [\textit{G. Dal Maso} et al., Set-Valued Anal. 10, No. 2--3, 165--183 (2002; Zbl 1009.74008)] it was show how linearized elastic energies can be recovered as the gamma-limit of rescaled finite elastic energies provided the boundary conditions are of the Dirichlet (or, in the mechanical jargon, \emph{hard}) type, these linearized energies being quadratic functions of the infinitesimal strain \(\mathbf{E}=\mbox{sym}\nabla\mathbf{u}\), with \(\mathbf{u}\) the displacement vector. A first try to extend this result to Neumann, \emph{soft} boundary conditions, provided into [\textit{F. Maddalena} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 234, No. 3, 1091--1120 (2019; Zbl 1429.74022)], failed to obtain the expected result. Indeed the gamma-limit of the energy obtained there was still a quadratic function but not of \(\mathbf{E}\), rather of the approximated Green-Lagrange deformation tensor \[ \mathbf{D}\approx\mathbf{E}-\frac{1}{2}\mathbf{W}^{2}\,,\quad\mathbf{W}=\mbox{skw}\nabla\mathbf{u}, \] an approximation which is best known with the name of \emph{small strain, moderate rotation}. In the present paper the problem of finding the gamma-limit of nonlinear elastic energies with soft boundary condition is correctly adressed and solved. In order to overcome the problem emerged in [\textit{F. Maddalena} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 234, No. 3, 1091--1120 (2019; Zbl 1429.74022)], a new approach is followed, based on the notion of \emph{optimal rotation}. The main tool on which the whole analysis is based is a linear functional of the rotations, which in turn is based on the Signorini's definition of \emph{astatic tensor} [\textit{C. Truesdell} and \textit{W. Noll}, The non-linear field theories of mechanics. Berlin: Springer-Verlag (1992; Zbl 0779.73004), \S 44]: \[ \mathbf{A}=\int_{\Omega}\mathbf{p}\otimes\mathbf{b}+\int_{\partial\Omega}\mathbf{p}\otimes\mathbf{s}\,, \] where \(\mathbf{p}\) denotes the position vector of the points of the reference configuration \(\Omega\) and \((\mathbf{b}\,,\mathbf{s})\) are the volume and surface forces for \(\Omega\). Oddly enough, no reference to Signorini is provided in the paper, so the reader may remain with the wrong idea that \(\mathbf{A}\) was defined by the authors. Nevertheless, the originality of the paper is in the use they made of the astatic tensor, a use which lead them to a result which is comparable with the one obtained in [\textit{G. Dal Maso} et al., Set-Valued Anal. 10, No. 2--3, 165--183 (2002; Zbl 1009.74008)] and overcomes the problems found in [\textit{F. Maddalena} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 234, No. 3, 1091--1120 (2019; Zbl 1429.74022)].