Nonlocal elasticity and related variational principles (Q5948598)

The author presents a refined theory of nonlocal linear elasticity, and formulates three variational principles. The attenuation function which is the kernel of integral operator that relates local stresses throughout the body to the actual stress at a particular point is assumed to depend on geodetical distance between the particles instead of the classical Euclidean distance. The geodetical distance between two points of the body is defined as the path of minimum length which does not intersect the boundaries of the body. Such paths circumvent some obstacles such as holes, cracks or dislocations which may be present in the body. With this modification, the linear constitutive equations are obtained just as in the Eringen theory by employing the Clausius-Duhem inequality in a somewhat simplified form. Then three variational principles for static mixed boundary value problems are proved: (i) minimum total potential energy in which kinematically admissible displacement fields are varied; (ii) minimum complementary energy in which statically admissible local stress fields are varied; and (iii) Hu-Washizu principle in which displacements, strains, stresses and boundary tractions are varied independently. Finally, the author develops some finite element schemes for numerical solutions of nonlocal boundary value problems.