Hyperelastic deformations and total combined energy of mappings between annuli

TL;DR

This paper studies the minimization of combined energy and distortion in deformations between concentric annuli, revealing conditions for radial minimizers and a Nitsche type phenomenon, extending previous results in geometric function theory.

Contribution

It introduces the total combined energy functional, constructs radial minimizers, and proves their optimality under constraints, extending prior work by Iwaniec and Onninen.

Findings

Radial minimizers exist if the target annulus is not too thin.

Radial minimizers are absolute minimizers under certain constraints.

The results reveal a Nitsche type phenomenon in the energy minimization context.

Abstract

We consider the so called combined energy of a deformation between two concentric annuli and minimize it, provided that it keep order of the boundaries. It is an extension of the corresponding result of Euclidean energy. It is intrigue that, the minimizers are certain radial mappings and they exists if and only if the annulus on the image domain is not too thin, provided that the original annulus is fixed. This in turn implies a Nitsche type phenomenon. Next we consider the combined distortion and obtain certain related results which are dual to the results for combined energy, which also involve some Nitche type phenomenon. {The main part of the paper is concerned with the total combined energy, a certain integral operator, defined as a convex linear combination of the combined energy and combined distortion, of diffeomorphisms between two concentric annuli $\A(1,r)$ and $\B(1,R)$. First we construct radial minimizers of total combined energy, then we prove that those radial minimizers are absolute minimizers on the class of all mappings between the annuli under certain constraint. This extends the main result obtained by Iwaniec and Onninen in \cite{arma}.}