Nonlinear Korn inequalities (Q890424)

\textit{G. Friesecke} et al. [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 55, No. 11, 1461--1506 (2002; Zbl 1021.74024)] have shown that, given any domain \(\Omega\) in \(\mathbb R^n\), there exists a constant \(c_1\) such that, for all mappings \(\Phi\in\mathbf{H}^1(\Omega)\), \[ \inf_{\mathbf R\in\mathbb O_+^n}\|\nabla\Phi-\mathbf{R}\|_{\mathbb L^2(\Omega)}\leq c_1\|\inf_{\mathbf R\in\mathbb O_+^n}|\nabla\Phi-\mathbf{R}| \|_{\mathbb L^2(\Omega)}. \] This fundamental ``geometric rigidity lemma'' has crucial applications in nonlinear plate and shell theories, in particular for proving that the three-dimensional model of nonlinear elasticity \(\Gamma\)-converges towards a two-dimensional nonlinear flexural plate, or shell, model as the thickness of the plate, or shell, goes to zero. A first generalization of this geometric rigidity lemma was given by \textit{S. Conti} [Low-energy deformations of thin elastic plates: isometric embeddings and branching patterns. Leipzig: Univ. Leipzig, Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik (Diss.) (2004; Zbl 1137.74004)], who showed that the \(\mathbb L^2(\Omega)\)-norms can be replaced by any \(\mathbb L^p(\Omega)\)-norms, \(1<p<\infty\), in both sides of the inequality with a constant now depending on \(p\). In this article the authors again generalize this lemma, by showing that the identity mapping \(\mathbf{id}\), which implicitly appears through the factor \(\mathbf{I}=\mathbf{\nabla id}\) to the right of the matrices \(\mathbf{R}\), can be replaced by an arbitrary immersion \(\mathbf{\Theta}\in \mathcal{C}^1(\overline{\Omega};\mathbb{R}^n)\). More concretely it is shown that there exists a constant \(c_2(p,\mathbf{\Theta})\) such that, for all \(\mathbf{\Phi}\in \mathbb{W}^{1,p}(\Omega)\), \[ \inf_{\mathbf R\in\mathbb O_+^n}\|\nabla\Phi-\mathbf{R}\nabla\Theta\|_{\mathbb L^p(\Omega)} \leq c_2(p,\Theta)\|\inf\mathbf R\in\mathbb O_+^n|\nabla\Phi -\mathbf{R}\nabla\Theta| \|_{\mathbb L^p(\Omega)}. \]