A note on Cauchy-Voigt dispute of independent constants in anisotropic elastic Hooke's law (Q1977323)

During the last years some publications had been devoted to the classical question of the maximum number of independent elastic constants in fully anisotropic linear elasticity (which is usually taken to be 21 due to the major symmetry of the elasticity tensor). According to Cauchy, however, this number should be 15. Here the authors show that Cauchy's elasticity tensor is the ``completely symmetric part'' (CSP) of Green's elasticity tensor. Further, they prove for two-dimensional piezoelectric problem with prescribed traction boundary conditions in a simply connected region that the stresses and electric displacements depend only on the CSP of three involved material tensors.