Remarks on homogenization and \(3D\)-\(2D\) dimension reduction of unbounded energies on thin films (Q6117118)

The authors consider a heterogeneous thin film occupying in a reference configuration the bounded and open subset \(\Sigma _{\varepsilon }=\Sigma \times \left[ -\frac{\varepsilon ^{\gamma }}{2},\frac{\varepsilon ^{\gamma } }{2}\right] \) of \(\mathbb{R}^{3}\), where \(\gamma \in ]0,\infty \lbrack \) is fixed, \(\varepsilon >0\), and \(\Sigma \) is a Lipschitz, open and bounded subset of \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\). The stored-energy density of the material filling \(\Sigma _{\varepsilon }\) is a Borel measurable function \(W:\mathbb{R} ^{2}\times \mathbb{M}^{3\times 3}\rightarrow \lbrack 0,\infty ]\) satisfying: \(W\) is \(p\)-coercive with \(p>1\), i.e. there exists \(C>0\) such that \( W(x,F)\geq C\left\vert F\right\vert ^{p}\) for all \((x,F)\in \mathbb{R} ^{2}\times \mathbb{M}^{3\times 3}\), \(W\) is \(1\)-periodic with respect to \(x\), i.e., \(W(x+z,F)=W(x,F)\) for all \((x,F)\in \mathbb{R}^{2}\times \mathbb{M} ^{3\times 3}\) and all \(z\in \mathbb{Z}^{2}\), \(W(x,F)\rightarrow \infty \) as \( \det F\rightarrow 0\), \(W\) is \(p\)-ample, i.e., there exists \(c>0\) such that \( \mathcal{Z}W(x,F)\leq c(1+\left\vert F\right\vert ^{p})\) for all \((x,F)\in \mathbb{R}^{2}\times \mathbb{M}^{3\times 3}\), where \(\mathcal{Z}W:\mathbb{R} ^{2}\times \mathbb{M}^{3\times 3}\rightarrow \lbrack 0,\infty ]\) is defined by \(\mathcal{Z}W(x,F)=\inf\left\{ \int_{Y}W(x,F+\nabla \varphi (x,x_{3}))dxdx_{3}:\varphi \in W_{0}^{1,\infty }(]-\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2} [^{3};\mathbb{R}^{3})\right\} \), there exists \(\lambda \in \mathcal{L}_{2}\) such that for every \(x,x^{\prime }\in \mathbb{R}^{2}\) and every \(F\in \mathbb{M}^{3\times 3}\), \(W(x,F)\leq \left\vert \lambda (x)-\lambda (x^{\prime })\right\vert (1+W(x^{\prime },F))+W(x^{\prime },F)\), and there exist a finite family \(\{V_{j}\}_{j\in J}\) of open disjoint subsets of \( \mathbb{R}^{2}\), with \(\mathcal{L}^{2}(\partial V_{j})=0\) for all \(j\in J\) and \(\mathcal{L}^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{2}\setminus \cup _{j\in J}V_{j})=0\), and a finite family \(\{H_{j}:\mathbb{M}^{3\times 3}\rightarrow \lbrack 0,\infty ]\}_{j\in J}\) of Borel measurable functions such that \(W(x,F)=\sum_{j\in J}1_{V_{j}}(x)H_{j}(F)\). Here \(\mathcal{L}_{2}\) is the class of \(\lambda \in L^{\infty }(\mathbb{R}^{2};[0,\infty \lbrack )\) such that \(\lambda \) is continuous almost everywhere with respect to \(\mathcal{L}^{2}\). The authors define the energy functional of the material \(E_{\varepsilon }:W^{1,p}(\Sigma _{\varepsilon };\mathbb{R}^{3})\rightarrow \lbrack 0,\infty ]\) (with \(p>1\)) as \(E_{\varepsilon }(u)=\frac{1}{\varepsilon ^{\gamma }} \int_{\Sigma _{\varepsilon }}W(\frac{x}{\varepsilon },\nabla u(x,x_{3})dxdx_{3}\). The main result of the paper proves that if \(W\) satisfies the above hypotheses, the energy \(E_{\varepsilon }\) \(\Gamma (\pi )\)-converges to \(\overline{E}:W^{1,p}(\Sigma _{\varepsilon };\mathbb{R} ^{3})\rightarrow \lbrack 0,\infty ]\) defined as \(\overline{E} (v):=\int_{\Sigma }\overline{W}(\nabla v(x))dx\), with \(\overline{W}:\mathbb{M }^{3\times 2}\rightarrow \lbrack 0,\infty ]\), which is given by three expressions involving minimizations, according to the position of \( \gamma \) with respect to 1. The authors first recall the definition of the \( \Gamma (\pi )\)-convergence introduced by \textit{G. Anzellotti} et al. [Asymptotic Anal. 9, No. 1, 61--100 (1994; Zbl 0811.49020)], and which is used for dimension reduction problems in mechanics. The proof of the main result first relies on a similar result obtained in a bounded case and which is deduced applying tools obtained by \textit{A. Braides} et al. [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 49, No. 4, 1367--1404 (2000; Zbl 0987.35020)] and by \textit{Y.C. Shu} in [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 153, No. 1, 39--90 (2000; Zbl 0959.74043)], then proving that \(\mathcal{Z}W(x,.)\) is quasiconvex, whence \(p\)-locally Lipschitz. The note ends with the description of examples.