Equilibrium analysis of finitely deformed elastic networks

Abstract

A specialized membrane theory is used to analyze equilibrium configurations of finitely deformed elastic networks. The effects of wrinkling of the network are incorporated by using a certain relaxed strain energy function derived from minimum energy considerations. The stresses derived from this function are non-compressive at all values of the strain. In particular, a fibre strain associated with vanishing fibre stress may be viewed as resulting from fine-scale wrinkling of the fibre. In this way destabilizing compressive stresses are automatically excluded from the solution of an equilibrium boundary value problem. The properties of the relaxed strain energy are used to show that all equilibrium configurations are absolute minimizers of the total potential energy, for certain classes of boundary data. The equilibrium equations are discretized by a differencing method derived from Green's theorem, and artificial mass, damping and time are incorporated. Equilibrium configurations are then obtained in the long-time limit of a damped dynamical problem. Several examples of two- and three-dimensional deformations are presented, and comparisons with analytical solutions are made wherever possible.