Elastic-brittle reinforcement of flexural structures (Q2116065)

The authors present a variational description of mechanical effects of flexural stiffening of a 2D plate glued to an elastic-brittle or an elastic-plastic reinforcement. They consider open, bounded and connected domains \(\Omega \subset \subset \Omega _{p}\subset \subset \mathbb{R}^{2}\) with \(C^{2}\) boundary. In the hard-device reinforcement case, the authors prove that for given \(w\in C^{2}(\overline{\Omega _{p}})\), \(\eta ,\mu >0\) and \(f\in L^{4}(\Omega )\), there exists a pair \((Z,u)\) minimizing the energy \(E(K,v)=\mathcal{H}^{1}(K\cap \overline{\Omega })+\int_{\Omega \setminus K}(\eta \left\vert D^{2}v\right\vert ^{2}-fv)dx+\mu \int_{\Omega }\left\vert v-w\right\vert ^{2}dx\) over essential admissible pairs \((K,v)\) that is \(K\) is the smallest closed subset of \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\) such that \(v\in C^{2}(\Omega _{p}\setminus K)\), \(v=w\) a.e. in \(\Omega _{p}\setminus \overline{\Omega }\). In the strengthening reinforcement case, the authors prove that for given \(f_{r}\in L^{4}(\Omega )\), \(f_{p}\in L^{2}(\Omega )\), \( \eta ,\mu >0\), and \(f\in L^{4}(\Omega )\), there exists a triplet \( (Z,u_{r},u_{p})\) minimizing the energy \(F(K,v_{r},v_{p})=\mathcal{H} ^{1}(K\cap \overline{\Omega })+\eta \int_{\Omega \setminus K}(\left\vert D^{2}v_{r}\right\vert ^{2}-f_{r}v_{r})dx+\mu \int_{\Omega }\left\vert v_{r}-v_{p}\right\vert ^{2}dx+\int_{\Omega }(\gamma (\left\vert D^{2}v_{p}\right\vert ^{2}-f_{p}v_{p})dx\) over essential admissible pairs \( (K,v_{r},v_{p})\) that is \(v_{p}\in H^{2}(\Omega _{p})\), \(v_{p}=w\) a.e. in \( \Omega _{p}\setminus \overline{\Omega }\), \(K\) is the smallest closed subset of \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\) such that \(v_{r}\in C^{2}(\Omega _{p}\setminus K)\), \( v_{r}=w\) a.e. in \(\Omega _{p}\setminus \overline{\Omega }\). In the elastic-plastic reinforcement of flexural plate case, the authors prove that for given \(f_{p}\in L^{2}(\Omega )\), \(\eta ,\mu ,\sigma >0\), and \(f\in L^{s}(\Omega )\), \(s>2\), there exists a triplet \((Z,u_{r},u_{p})\) minimizing the energy \(F(K,v_{r},v_{p})=\mathcal{H}^{1}(K\cap \overline{\Omega })+\eta \int_{\Omega \setminus K}(\left\vert D^{2}v_{r}\right\vert ^{2}-f_{r}v_{r})dx+\mu \int_{\Omega }\left\vert v_{r}-v_{p}\right\vert ^{2}dx+\int_{\Omega }(\gamma (\left\vert D^{2}v_{p}\right\vert ^{2}-f_{p}v_{p})dx\) over essential admissible pairs \((K,v_{r},v_{p})\) that is \(v_{p}\in H^{2}(\Omega _{p})\), \(v_{p}=w\) a.e. in \(\Omega _{p}\setminus \overline{\Omega }\), \(K\) is the smallest closed subset of \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\) such that \(v_{r}\in C^{2}(\Omega _{p}\setminus K)\), \(v_{r}=w\) a.e. in \( \Omega _{p}\setminus \overline{\Omega }\). In each case, \(Z\cap \Omega _{p}=Z\cap \overline{\Omega }\) is an \((\mathcal{H}^{1},1)\) rectifiable set and the associated energy is finite. The authors first analyze 1D cases concerning reinforcement of flexural beams. They here prove existence of minimizers for the energy functionals, using estimates on minimizing sequences, Euler equations and compliance identities for the energies, and variational conditions for the minimizers under unilateral constraints. For the proofs of the existence in the 2D cases, the authors quote results from the literature, for example the paper by \textit{M. Carriero}, \textit{ A. Leaci} and \textit{F. Tomarelli} in [Adv. Math. Sci. Appl. 20, No. 1, 107--141 (2010; Zbl 1220.49001)]. They also use properties of function spaces \(BV(\Omega )\) and of some of its subspaces \(SBV(\Omega )\) and others.