Shakedown of elastic-plastic solids with frictionless unilateral contact boundary conditions (Q1369398)

Making use of the Drucker's stability postulate, the author derives a concept of stability and extends the classical Melan shakedown theorem to unilateral contact boundary conditions and to smooth data and unknowns, such that classical calculus of variations can be applied. Elastic-plastic materials (perfect) and infinitesimal displacements are considered, but inertial and viscous forces and temperature changes are assumed to be negligible. The shakedown problem includes the Signorini boundary conditions. Thus this new formulation of the stability postulate includes an additional functional dependent on unilateral boundary conditions analogous to the previously established functional for elastic-plastic damage. The Melan theorem (the non-positiveness of the yield function of fictitious elastic response, being added to the contact conditions) is shown to be necessary and sufficient. The shakedown domain is generally nonconvex, and can be determined by solving the formulated problem. A two-bar structure with simple temperature history is treated as a numerical example.