Stresses, Singularities, and a Complementary Energy Principle for Large Strain Elasticity

Abstract

This article reviews three aspects of large strain elasticity. First, various conjugate stress tensors to strain tensors are reviewed. Many researchers have studied the theory of large strain elasticity. Many stress tensors including the Cauchy stress tensor, the first and the second Piola–Kirchhoff stress tensor, and the Jaumann stress tensor have been proposed to describe the stress state at a point. Recently, the first author of this article proposed a concept of “base forces” to reveal the essence of stress state. By the concept of base forces, the description of the stress state becomes clearer than other stress tensors. We attempt to take base forces as a basic point of view to deal with a review in which different descriptions of stress state are discussed and compared. The governing equations and boundary conditions expressed by the base forces are given. Second, this article reviews the solution of some singularity problems for large strain elasticity, i.e., problems of stress singularity at a crack or a notch tip, at the point of application of a concentrated force and at the vertex of contact in rubberlike materials. Methods of getting the singularity index of stress by using base forces are introduced and compared to earlier work. Complementary energy principles for large strain elasticity have eluded researchers for nearly 100years. A review of some important advances in this is also given, and a new complementary energy principle related to base forces is introduced.