On consistent first approximations in the general linear theory of thin elastic shells

Abstract

This paper, as a number of earlier ones, is concerned with the rational establishment of twodimensional differential equations for the approximate analysis of stress and strain in elastic layers with spacecurved middle surface. It has been known for some time that the principal difficulty of this problem is to establish rational two-dimensional constitutive equations which correspond to a given system of constitutive equations for the layer treated as a three-dimensional continuum. — In an earlier publication [18] the point had been made that since two-dimensional shell theory was concerned with stress resultants and stress couples, it ought to be advantageous to derive such a theory from a three-dimensional theory in which force stresses as well as moment stresses were incorporated, even for media which, actually, were incapable of supporting moment stresses. — The earlier work [18] had indicated that, mathematically, the advantages of approaching the derivation of two-dimensional shell theory from three-dimensional moment stress elastically theory had to do with the form of the compatibility equations for strain in such a three-dimensional theory. Briefly, with these three-dimensional compatibility equations it becomes possible to concentrate all three-dimensional aspects of the shell problem in a three-dimensional system of integro-differential constitutive equations, and the task of deriving rational two-dimensional constitutive equations becomes nothing but the task of establishing suitable asymptotic expansions for the solutions of these three-dimensional integro-differential equations. In the work in [18] this task had not actually been carried out. The present paper establishes a significant rearrangement of the system of integro-differential equations, in such a way that the nature of the necessary asymptotic expansions is made evident. — With this, explicit results are obtained which include the system of two-dimensional constitutive equations of Koiter and Sanders for an iotropic homogeneous medium, as well as a system of constitutive equations for a class of shells for which the normals to the middle surface are not directions of elastic symmetry, as well as a system of constitutive equations for shells which are sufficiently soft in transverse shear to make transverse shear deformation a first-order effect.