Global stress regularity of convex and some nonconvex variational problems

Abstract

We derive a global regularity theorem for stress fields which correspond to minimizers of convex and some special nonconvex variational problems with mixed boundary conditions on admissible domains. These are Lipschitz domains satisfying additional geometric conditions near those points, where the type of the boundary conditions changes. In the first part it is assumed that the energy densities defining the variational problem are convex but not necessarily strictly convex and satisfy a convexity inequality. The regularity result for this case is derived with a difference quotient technique. In the second part the regularity results are carried over from the convex case to special nonconvex variational problems taking advantage of the relation between nonconvex variational problems and the corresponding (quasi-) convexified problems. The results are applied amongst others to the variational problems for linear elasticity, the p-Laplace operator, Hencky elasto-plasticity with linear hardening and for scalar and vectorial two-well potentials (compatible case).