Existence and stability of necking deformations for nonlinearly elastic rods (Q1094184)

The rod considered here has, under (possibly non-uniform) elongation, an elastic potential \(\omega\) which depends on axial strain \(\epsilon\), on a measure \(\rho\) of transverse expansion/contraction (both functions of the axial coordinate at most) and on the derivative \(\rho\) ' of \(\rho\) ; the manner of dependence can be derived from the three-dimensional theory of hyperelasticity provided that the rod is supposed to have originally the shape of a circular cylinder, to be materially homogeneous and to obey the constraint that normal sections remain plane and normal and expand/contract uniformly. The problem addressed concerns existence and shape of static solutions when the increase of the total length of the deformed rod is prescribed. Completing, extending and specifying precisely earlier work by Ericksen, Antman and others [e.g. \textit{J. L. Ericksen}, J. Elasticity 5, 191-201 (1975; Zbl 0324.73067); \textit{St. S. Antman}, J. Math. Anal. 44, 333-349 (1973; Zbl 0267.73031)], the author proves, by variational methods, existence and regularity of global minima for the elastic energy of the rod under hypotheses on \(\omega\) which are not much more than those which are implied on \(\omega\) by a condition of strong ellipticity for the three-dimensional potential. Having assumed further that the traction in response to uniform elongation be a non-monotonic function of the elongation \(\lambda\) (precisely a function of the type commonly envisaged in phase-change studies), the author proceeds to explore existence and shape of local minimizers for the elastic energy of the rod. For values of the overall elongation outside the `Maxwell interval' for \(\lambda\) the constant solution (\(\epsilon\), \(\rho\), constant) is the global minimizer; inside that interval a monotonically varying solution of the Euler equation (a `half neck' or a `draw') represents the global minimizer, provided that the rod is sufficiently thin.