A counterexample to the conjecture of Saint Venant via reflection methods (Q2639669)

The author presents a counterexample to the maximum shear stress conjecture of the Saint Venant torsion theory for elastic cylindrical bars. The conjecture is that the maximum shear stress occurs on the cross-section boundary at those points closest to the origin. The counter example is a bar with cross-section such that only two of four points closest to the origin have maximum shear stress. The author then proposes a modified conjecture stating that the maximum shear stress will occur at those points on the boundary, closest to the origin, with lease curvature. The paper is very specialized, but well-written with apparent sound analysis. It will probably be primarily of interest to theoreticians in structural theory.