Asymptotic analysis of the stresses in thin elastic shells (Q1805994)

Let \(\omega\) be a domain in \(\mathbb{R}^2\), and for each \(\varepsilon >0\) let \(\Omega^\varepsilon= \omega \times]-\varepsilon; +\varepsilon[\) be the set with boundary \(\Gamma^\varepsilon\). Let \(\varphi\) be an injective and smooth enough mapping from \(\overline\Omega^\varepsilon\) in \(\mathbb{R}^3\). The authors consider a family of thin shells made of the same Saint Venant-Kirchhoff material with configuration \(\overline{\widehat \Omega}^\varepsilon= \varphi (\overline \Omega^\varepsilon)\) and with thickness \(2\varepsilon\). Each shell is clamped on a portion of its lateral boundary \(\widehat\Gamma^\varepsilon_0= \varphi (\Gamma_0^\varepsilon)\), where \(\Gamma^\varepsilon_0= \gamma_0 \times(-\varepsilon; +\varepsilon)\), \(\gamma_0\) is a portion of the boundary of \(\omega\) with a strictly positive length. The equations of equilibrium are expressed through the first Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor \(\widehat T^\varepsilon\). The authors study the limiting behaviour of the stress tensor field \(\widehat T^\varepsilon\), when \(\varepsilon\) approaches zero. In the linear case, the authors use a convergence result established for the displacement field in order to obtain the convergence of contravariant components of the linearized stress tensor. In the nonlinear case, the identification of the first Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor is made through formal asymptotic analysis. In both cases it is shown that the limiting stress fields depend on the shell geometry and on the boundary conditions.