Lower semicontinuity and existence of minimizers in incremental finite‐strain elastoplasticity

Abstract

AbstractWe study incremental problems in geometrically nonlinear elastoplasticity. Using the multiplicative decomposition Dφ= FelFpl we consider general energy functionals of the formℐ(φ, Fpl) = ∫ΩU(x, DφF‐1pl, Fpl, 𝒢(Fpl)) dx‐<ℓ, φ>,which occur as the sum of the stored energy and the dissipation in one time step. Here 𝒢(Fpl) is the dislocation tensor which takes the form ${1\over {\rm det} F_{\rm pl}}$ curl3(Fpl),Fpl T in dimension d = 3.Imposing the usual constraint det Fpl ≡ 1 and suitable growth and polyconvexity conditions on U we show that the minimum of ℐ is attained in the natural Sobolev spaces. Moreover, we are able to treat multiple time steps by controlling the stored and dissipated energies. We also address the relation of the incremental problem to the time‐continuous energetic formulation of elastoplasticity.