Shape derivatives of energy and regularity of minimizers for shallow elastic shells with cohesive cracks

Abstract

The paper addresses the analysis of a model for a thin shallow linear elastic shell with a smooth vertical through crack that is based on the Kirchhoff–Love shell theory and accounts for cohesive forces acting between the crack faces. We follow the basic idea behind the Barenblatt theory assuming that the density of the total energy spent by the cohesive forces is the sum of longitudinal and transverse contributions, each of which in general is nonconvex. In order to eliminate nonphysical interpenetration of the crack faces, an inequality constraint that involves both the normal component of the longitudinal displacements and the normal derivative of the transverse deflection of the crack faces is imposed. We first prove the existence of minimizers for the total energy and study in detail the Euler–Lagrange system for them. Then we derive the left and right Eulerian shape derivatives of the minimal value of the total energy by developing a fully variational technique. Finally we apply the developed technique coupled with a difference quotient argument to obtain higher differentiability results in Besov and Sobolev spaces for the minimizers.