arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Marta Lewicka.
We derive a new model for pre-strained thin films, which consists of minimizing a biharmonic energy of deformations $v\in W^{2,2}$ satisfying the Monge-Ampère constraint $\det\nabla^2v = f$. We further discuss multiplicity properties of the minimizers of this model, in some special cases.
The three-dimensional shapes of thin lamina such as leaves, flowers, feathers, wings etc, are driven by the differential strain induced by the relative growth. The growth takes place through variations in the Riemannian metric, given on the thin sheet as a function of location in the central plane and also across its thickness. The shape is then a consequence of elastic energy minimization on the frustrated geometrical object. Here we provide a rigorous derivation of the asymptotic theories for shapes of residually strained thin lamina with nontrivial curvatures, i.e. growing elastic shells in both the weakly and strongly curved regimes, generalizing earlier results for the growth of nominally flat plates. The different theories are distinguished by the scaling of the mid-surface curvature relative to the inverse thickness and growth strain, and also allow us to generalize the classical Föppl-von Kármán energy to theories of prestrained shallow shells.
Motivated by the degree of smoothness of constrained embeddings of surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$, and by the recent applications to the elasticity of shallow shells, we rigorously derive the $Γ$-limit of 3-dimensional nonlinear elastic energy of a shallow shell of thickness $h$, where the depth of the shell scales like $h^α$ and the applied forces scale like $h^{α+2}$, in the limit when $h\to 0$. The main analytical ingredients are two independent results: a theorem on approximation of $W^{2,2}$ solutions of the Monge-Ampère equation by smooth solutions, and a theorem on the matching (in other words, continuation) of second order isometries to exact isometries.
We study the Korn-Poincaré inequality: \|u\|_{W^{1,2}(S^h)} < C_h \|D(u)\|_{L^2(S^h)}, in domains S^h that are shells of small thickness of order h, around an arbitrary smooth and closed hypersurface S in R^n. By D(u) we denote the symmetric part of the gradient \nabla u, and we assume the tangential boundary conditions: u\vec n^h = 0 on \partial S^h. We prove that C_h remains uniformly bounded as h tends to 0, for vector fields u in any family of cones (with angle <π/2, uniform in h) around the orthogonal complement of extensions of Killing vector fields on S. We also show that this condition is optimal, as in turn every Killing field admits a family of extensions u^h, for which the ratio: \|u^h\|_{W^{1,2}(S^h)} / \|D(u^h)\|_{L^2(S^h)} blows up as h tends to 0, even if the domains S^h are not rotationally symmetric.
We prove convergence of critical points $u^h$ of the nonlinear elastic energies $E^h$ of thin incompressible plates $Ω^h=Ω\times (-h/2, h/2)$, which satisfy the von Kármán scaling: $E^h(u^h)\leq Ch^4$, to critical points of the appropriate limiting (incompressible von Kármán) functional.
We perform a detailed analysis of first order Sobolev-regular infinitesimal isometries on developable surfaces without affine regions. We prove that given enough regularity of the surface, any first order infinitesimal isometry can be matched to an infinitesimal isometry of an arbitrarily high order. We discuss the implications of this result for the elasticity of thin developable shells.
We prove the local in time existence of the classical solutions to the system of equations of isothermal viscoelasticity with clamped boundary conditions. We deal with a general form of viscous stress tensor $\mathcal{Z}(F,\dot F)$, assuming a Korn-type condition on its derivative $D_{\dot F}\mathcal{Z}(F, \dot F)$. This condition is compatible with the balance of angular momentum, frame invariance and the Claussius-Duhem inequality. We give examples of linear and nonlinear (in $\dot F$) tensors $\mathcal{Z}$ satisfying these required conditions.
We consider the Stokes-Boussinesq (and the stationary Navier-Stokes-Boussinesq) equations in a slanted, i.e. not aligned with the gravity's direction, 3d channel and with an arbitrary Rayleigh number. For the front-like initial data and under the no-slip boundary condition for the flow and no-flux boundary condition for the reactant temperature, we derive uniform estimates on the burning rate and the flow velocity, which can be interpreted as stability results for the laminar front.
We investigate existence and stability of viscoelastic shock profiles for a class of planar models including the incompressible shear case studied by Antman and Malek-Madani. We establish that the resulting equations fall into the class of symmetrizable hyperbolic--parabolic systems, hence spectral stability implies linearized and nonlinear stability with sharp rates of decay. The new contributions are treatment of the compressible case, formulation of a rigorous nonlinear stability theory, including verification of stability of small-amplitude Lax shocks, and the systematic incorporation in our investigations of numerical Evans function computations determining stability of large-amplitude and or nonclassical type shock profiles.
We provide a derivation of the Foppl-von Karman equations for the shape of and stresses in an elastic plate with residual strains. These might arise from a range of causes: inhomogeneous growth, plastic deformation, swelling or shrinkage driven by solvent absorption. Our analysis gives rigorous bounds on the convergence of the three dimensional equations of elasticity to the low-dimensional description embodied in the plate-like description of laminae and thus justifies a recent formulation of the problem to the shape of growing leaves. It also formalizes a procedure that can be used to derive other low-dimensional descriptions of active materials.
This paper concerns the elastic structures which exhibit non-zero strain at free equilibria. Many growing tissues (leaves, flowers or marine invertebrates) attain complicated configurations during their free growth. Our study departs from the 3d incompatible elasticity theory, conjectured to explain the mechanism for the spontaneous formation of non-Euclidean metrics. Recall that a smooth Riemannian metric on a simply connected domain can be realized as the pull-back metric of an orientation preserving deformation if and only if the associated Riemann curvature tensor vanishes identically. When this condition fails, one seeks a deformation yielding the closest metric realization. We set up a variational formulation of this problem by introducing the non-Euclidean version of the nonlinear elasticity functional, and establish its $Γ$-convergence under the proper scaling. As a corollary, we obtain new necessary and sufficient conditions for existence of a $W^{2,2}$ isometric immersion of a given 2d metric into $\mathbb R^3$.
We summarize some recent results of the authors and their collaborators, regarding the derivation of thin elastic shell models (for shells with mid-surface of arbitrary geometry) from the variational theory of 3d nonlinear elasticity. We also formulate a conjecture on the form and validity of infinitely many limiting 2d models, each corresponding to its proper scaling range of the body forces in terms of the shell thickness.
We prove that the critical points of the 3d nonlinear elasticity functional on shells of small thickness $h$ and around the mid-surface $S$ of arbitrary geometry, converge as $h\to 0$ to the critical points of the von Kármán functional on $S$, recently derived in \cite{lemopa1}. This result extends the statement in \cite{MuPa}, derived for the case of plates when $S\subset\mathbb{R}^2$. We further prove the same convergence result for the weak solutions to the static equilibrium equations (formally the Euler- Lagrange equations associated to the elasticity functional). The convergences hold provided the elastic energy of the 3d deformations scale like $h^4$ and the external body forces scale like $h^3$.
We extend earlier work on traveling waves in premixed flames in a gravitationally stratified medium, subject to the Boussinesq approximation. For three-dimensional channels not aligned with the gravity direction and under the Dirichlet boundary conditions in the fluid velocity, it is shown that a non-planar traveling wave, corresponding to a non-zero reaction, exists, under an explicit condition relating the geometry of the crossection of the channel to the magnitude of the Prandtl and Rayleigh numbers, or when the advection term in the flow equations is neglected.
Using the notion of Gamma-convergence, we discuss the limiting behavior of the 3d nonlinear elastic energy for thin elliptic shells, as their thickness h converges to zero, under the assumption that the elastic energy of deformations scales like $h^β$ with $2<β<4$. We establish that, for the given scaling regime, the limiting theory reduces to the linear pure bending. Two major ingredients of the proofs are: the density of smooth infinitesimal isometries in the space of $W^{2,2}$ first order infinitesimal isometries, and a result on matching smooth infinitesimal isometries with exact isometric immersions on smooth elliptic surfaces.
We study the $Γ$-limit of 3d nonlinear elasticity for shells of small, variable thickness, around an arbitrary smooth 2d surface.
We discuss the limiting behavior (using the notion of Γ-limit) of the 3d nonlinear elasticity for thin shells around an arbitrary smooth 2d surface. In particular, under the assumption that the elastic energy of deformations scales like h^4 (where h is the thickness of a shell), we derive a limiting theory which is a generalization of the von Kármán theory for plates.