A class of convex non-coercive functionals and masonry-like materials (Q1066461)

The present paper is a very precise and exhaustive study of the problem of minimizing a class of integral functionals of the type \[ E(u)=\int_{\Omega}\| P_ K\epsilon (u)\|^ 2dx- \int_{\Omega}f(x)u(x)dx-\int_{\partial \Omega}F(\quad x)u(x)d{\mathcal H}^{n-1}, \] where \(\Omega =\Omega \circ \subset R^ n\), u,f: \(\Omega\) \(\to R^ n\), \(F: \partial \Omega \to R^ n\), K is a closed convex cone in the space V of \(n\times n\) symmetric matrices V and \(P_ K: V\to K\) is the orthogonal projection on K, and \(\epsilon_{ij}(u)=((\partial u^ i/\partial x_ j)+(\partial u^ j/\partial x_ i))/2\), \(i,j=1,...,n\). The peculiarity of the functional is that it is not coercive if the forces f, F are zero, but it becomes coercive under suitable assumptions on them. The present problem is strictly connected with the study of the static equilibrium for elastic materials like rocks, concrete and walls, i.e. the so-called masonry-like materials. The author also provides a careful description of the physical interpretation of the mathematical model presented. This note represents a further extension of the results proved by \textit{M. Giaquinta} and \textit{E. Giusti} [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 88, 359-392 (1985)] for the two dimensional case.