Some consequences of the distributional stress equilibrium condition

Abstract

We derive two consequences of the distributional form of the stress equilibrium condition while incorporating piecewise smooth stress and body force fields with singular concentrations on an interface. First, we obtain the local equilibrium conditions in the bulk and at the interface, the latter inclusive of interfacial stress and stress dipole fields. Second, we obtain the necessary and the sufficient conditions on the divergence-free non-smooth stress field for there to exist a stress function field such that the stress equilibrium is trivially satisfied. In doing so, we allow the domain to be non-contractible with mutually disjoint connected boundary components. Both derivations illustrate the utility of the theory of distributions in dealing with singular stress fields.