Reference configurations versus optimal rotations: a derivation of linear elasticity from finite elasticity for all traction forces (Q2043222)

The position of linear elasticity with respect to finite elasticity has attracted interests in mechanics since the pionieering works of Signorini with his celebrated expansion method [\textit{A. Signorini}, Proc. 3rd Int. Congr. Appl.Mech. 2, 80--89 (1930); \textit{G. Capriz} and \textit{P. P. Guidugli}, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 57, 1--30 (1974; Zbl 0315.73062)]. At the beginning of this century, Dal Maso \textit{et al.} proposed a fresh approach to this old problem by using the powerful tool of gamma-convergence. In their fundamental paper [\textit{G. Dal Maso} et al., Set-Valued Anal. 10, No. 2--3, 165--183 (2002; Zbl 1009.74008)] it was show how linearized elastic energies can be recovered as the gamma-limit of rescaled finite elastic energies provided the boundary conditions are of the Dirichlet (or, in the mechanical jargon, \emph{hard}) type, these linearized energies being quadratic functions of the infinitesimal strain \(\mathbf{E}=\mbox{sym}\nabla\mathbf{u}\), with \(\mathbf{u}\) the displacement vector. A first try to extend this result to Neumann, \emph{soft} boundary conditions, provided into [\textit{F. Maddalena} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 234, No. 3, 1091--1120 (2019; Zbl 1429.74022)], failed to obtain the expected result. Indeed the gamma-limit of the energy obtained there was still a quadratic function but not of \(\mathbf{E}\), rather of the approximated Green-Lagrange deformation tensor \[ \mathbf{D}\approx\mathbf{E}-\frac{1}{2}\mathbf{W}^{2}\,,\quad\mathbf{W}=\mbox{skw}\nabla\mathbf{u}, \] an approximation which is best known with the name of \emph{small strain, moderate rotation}. In the present paper the problem of finding the gamma-limit of nonlinear elastic energies with soft boundary condition is correctly adressed and solved. In order to overcome the problem emerged in [\textit{F. Maddalena} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 234, No. 3, 1091--1120 (2019; Zbl 1429.74022)], a new approach is followed, based on the notion of \emph{optimal rotation}. The main tool on which the whole analysis is based is a linear functional of the rotations, which in turn is based on the Signorini's definition of \emph{astatic tensor} [\textit{C. Truesdell} and \textit{W. Noll}, The non-linear field theories of mechanics. Berlin: Springer-Verlag (1992; Zbl 0779.73004), \S 44]: \[ \mathbf{A}=\int_{\Omega}\mathbf{p}\otimes\mathbf{b}+\int_{\partial\Omega}\mathbf{p}\otimes\mathbf{s}\,, \] where \(\mathbf{p}\) denotes the position vector of the points of the reference configuration \(\Omega\) and \((\mathbf{b}\,,\mathbf{s})\) are the volume and surface forces for \(\Omega\). Oddly enough, no reference to Signorini is provided in the paper, so the reader may remain with the wrong idea that \(\mathbf{A}\) was defined by the authors. Nevertheless, the originality of the paper is in the use they made of the astatic tensor, a use which lead them to a result which is comparable with the one obtained in [\textit{G. Dal Maso} et al., Set-Valued Anal. 10, No. 2--3, 165--183 (2002; Zbl 1009.74008)] and overcomes the problems found in [\textit{F. Maddalena} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 234, No. 3, 1091--1120 (2019; Zbl 1429.74022)].