A simplified model for elastic thin shells

Abstract

We introduce a simplified model for the minimization of the elastic energy in thin shells. This model is not obtained by an asymptotic analysis. The nonlinear simplified model admits always minimizers by contrast with the original one. We show the relevance of our approach by proving that the rescaled minimum of the simplified model and the rescaled infimum of the full model have the same limit as the thickness tends to 0. The simplified energy can be expressed as a functional acting over fields defined on the mid-surface of the shell and where the thickness remains as a parameter.