On asymptotic rigidity and continuity problems in nonlinear elasticity on manifolds and hypersurfaces

Abstract

Intrinsic nonlinear elasticity deals with the deformations of elastic bodies as isometric immersions of Riemannian manifolds into the Euclidean spaces (see Ciarlet [9,10]). In this paper, we study the rigidity and continuity properties of elastic bodies for the intrinsic approach to nonlinear elasticity. We first establish a geometric rigidity estimate for mappings from Riemannian manifolds to spheres (in the spirit of Friesecke–James–Müller [23]), which is the first result of this type for the non-Euclidean case as far as we know. Then we prove the asymptotic rigidity of elastic membranes under suitable geometric conditions. Finally, we provide a simplified geometric proof of the continuous dependence of deformations of elastic bodies on the Cauchy–Green tensors and second fundamental forms, which extends the Ciarlet–Mardare theorem in [18] to arbitrary dimensions and co-dimensions.