Stability of quasi-static crack evolution through dimensional reduction

International audienceThis paper deals with quasi-static crack growth in thin films. We show that, when the thickness of the film tends to zero, any three-dimensional quasi-static crack evolution converges to a two-dimensional one, in a sense related to the Gamma-convergence of the associated total energy. We extend the prior analysis of [2] by adding conservative body and surface forces which allow us to remove the boundedness assumption on the deformation fiel

A note on the derivation of rigid-plastic models

This note is devoted to a rigorous derivation of rigid-plasticity as the limit of elasto-plasticity when the elasticity tends to infinity

Relaxation approximation of Friedrich's systems under convex constraints

This paper is devoted to present an approximation of a Cauchy problem for Friedrichs' systems under convex constraints. It is proved the strong convergence in L^2\_{loc} of a parabolic-relaxed approximation towards the unique constrained solution

Energy release rate for non smooth cracks in planar elasticity

This paper is devoted to the characterization of the energy release rate of a crack which is merely closed, connected, and with density $1/2$ at the tip. First, the blow-up limit of the displacement is analyzed, and the convergence to the corresponding positively $1/2$-homogenous function in the cracked plane is established. Then, the energy release rate is obtained as the derivative of the elastic energy with respect to an infinitesimal additional crack increment

On the Convergence of critical points of the Ambrosio-Tortorelli functional

This work is devoted to study the asymptotic behavior of critical points $\{(u_\varepsilon,v_\varepsilon)\}_{\varepsilon>0}$ of the Ambrosio-Tortorelli functional. Under a uniform energy bound assumption, the usual $\Gamma$-convergence theory ensures that $(u_\varepsilon,v_\varepsilon)$ converges in the $L^2$-sense to some $(u_*,1)$ as $\varepsilon\to 0$, where $u_*$ is a special function of bounded variation. Assuming further the Ambrosio-Tortorelli energy of $(u_\varepsilon,v_\varepsilon)$ to converge to the Mumford-Shah energy of $u_*$, the later is shown to be a critical point with respect to inner variations of the Mumford-Shah functional. As a byproduct, the second inner variation is also shown to pass to the limit. To establish these convergence results, interior ($\mathscr{C}^\infty$) regularity and boundary regularity for Dirichlet boundary conditions are first obtained for a fixed parameter $\varepsilon>0$. The asymptotic analysis is then performed by means of varifold theory in the spirit of scalar phase transition problems. Lastly, a complete one-dimensional study allows one to exhibit non-minimizing critical points of the Ambrosio-Tortorelli functional that do satisfy our energy convergence assumption

Quasistatic evolution in non-associative plasticity - The cap model

International audienceNon-associative elasto-plasticity is the working model of plasticity for soil and rocks mechanics. Yet, it is usually viewed as non-variational. In this work, we prove a contrario the existence of a variational evolution for such a model under a natural capping assumption on the hydrostatic stresses and a less natural mollification of the stress admissibility constraint. The obtained elasto-plastic evolution is expressed for times that are conveniently rescaled

A variational approach to the local character of G-closure: the convex case

This article is devoted to characterize all possible effective behaviors of composite materials by means of periodic homogenization. This is known as a $G$-closure problem. Under convexity and $p$-growth conditions ($p>1$), it is proved that all such possible effective energy densities obtained by a $\Gamma$-convergence analysis, can be locally recovered by the pointwise limit of a sequence of periodic homogenized energy densities with prescribed volume fractions. A weaker locality result is also provided without any kind of convexity assumption and the zero level set of effective energy densities is characterized in terms of Young measures. A similar result is given for cell integrands which enables to propose new counter-examples to the validity of the cell formula in the nonconvex case and to the continuity of the determinant with respect to the two-scale convergence.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur

Unilateral gradient flow of the Ambrosio-Tortorelli functional by minimizing movements

Motivated by models of fracture mechanics, this paper is devoted to the analysis of unilateral gradient flows of the Ambrosio-Tortorelli functional, where unilaterality comes from an irreversibility constraint on the fracture density. In the spirit of gradient flows in metric spaces, such evolutions are defined in terms of curves of maximal unilateral slope, and are constructed by means of implicit Euler schemes. An asymptotic analysis in the Mumford-Shah regime is also carried out. It shows the convergence towards a generalized heat equation outside a time increasing crack set.Comment: accepted in Ann. Inst. H. Poincar\'e, Anal. Nonli