The quasiconvex envelope of the Saint Venant–Kirchhoff stored energy function

Abstract

We give an explicit expression for the quasiconvex envelope of the Saint Venant–Kirchhoff stored energy function in terms of the singular values. This envelope is also the convex, polyconvex and rank 1 convex envelope of the Saint Venant–Kirchhoff stored energy function. Moreover, it coincides with the Saint Venant–Kirchhoff stored energy function itself on, and only on, the set of matrices whose singular values arranged in increasing order are located outside an ellipsoid. It vanishes on, and only on, the set of matrices whose singular values are less than 1. Consequently, a Saint Venant–Kirchhoff material can be compressed under zero external loading.