BV solutions constructed using the epsilon-neighborhood method

Abstract

We study a certain class of weak solutions to rate-independent systems, which is constructed by using the local minimality in a small neighborhood of order $\varepsilon$ and then taking the limit $\varepsilon \to 0$. We show that the resulting solution satisfies both the weak local stability and the new energy-dissipation balance, similarly to the BV solutions constructed by vanishing viscosity introduced recently by Mielke, Rossi and Savar\'e.