Variational principles in elasticity with nonlinear stress-strain relation

Abstract

Since 1979, a series of papers have been published concerning the variational principles and generalized variational principles in elasticity such as [1] (1979), [6] (1980), [2,3] (1983) and [4,5] (1984). All these papers deal with the elastic body with linear stress-strain relations. In 1985, a book was published on generalized variational principles dealing with some nonlinear elastic body, but never going into detailed discussion. This paper discusses particularly variational principles and generalized variational principles for elastic body with nonlinear stress-strain relations. In these discussions, we find many interesting problems worth while to pay some attention. At the same time, these discussions are also instructive for linear elastic problems. When the strain is small, the high order terms may be neglected, the results of this paper may be simplified to the well-known principles in ordinary elasticity problems.