Some sufficient conditions for lower semicontinuity in SBD and applications to minimum problems of Fracture Mechanics

Giuliano Gargiulo, Elvira Zappale

Published 2009-12-28Version 1

We provide some lower semicontinuity results in the space of special functions of bounded deformation for energies of the type $$ %\int_\O {1/2}({\mathbb C} \E u, \E u)dx + \int_{J_{u}} \Theta(u^+, u^-, \nu_{u})d \H^{N-1} \enspace, \enspace [u]\cdot \nu_u \geq 0 \enspace {\cal H}^{N-1}-\hbox{a. e. on}J_u, $$ and give some examples and applications to minimum problems. \noindent Keywords: Lower semicontinuity, fracture, special functions of bounded deformation, joint convexity, $BV$-ellipticity.