Interfacial energies for incoherent inclusions (Q5953973)

The authors consider a model for rigid inclusions in an elastic material. The inclusions are incoherent, i.e., slip is allowed between the elastic matrix and the rigid inclusions. The stored elastic energies increase with the size of the inclusions, the slip along the interface is penalized by a surface energy term. So the problem the authors discuss is the minimization of the functional \[ F(u)=\int_{{\mathbb R}^3 \setminus \Omega} \varphi(E-E_0) dv + \int_{\partial \Omega}f(x, D_S u) da, \] where \(\Omega\) represents the inclusions, \(E(u)\) is the symmetric part of the gradient of \(u\) and \(u\in W^{1,2}_{\text{loc}} ({\mathbb R}^3 \setminus \Omega; {\mathbb R}^3)\), such that \(E(u)-E_0 \in L^2 ({\mathbb R}^3 \setminus \Omega; {\mathbb R}^{3\times 3})\) with the constraint \(u\cdot n=0\) on \(\partial \Omega\). The paper contains: a discussion of the coherence of the interface (i.e., \(u=0\) on \(\partial \Omega\) or not) depending on the smoothness of \(f\), an analysis of the existence of minimizers, the relaxation of \(F\) under the assumption of convexity of \(\varphi\). This last part makes use of the notion of tangential quasiconvexity.