Complex-potential method in the nonlinear theory of elasticity

For materials characterized by a linear relation between Almansi strains and Cauchy stresses, relations between stresses and complex potentials are obtained and the plane static problem of the theory of elasticity is thus reduced to a boundary-value problem for the potentials. The resulting relations are nonlinear in the potentials; they generalize well-known Kolosov's formulas of linear elasticity. A condition under which the results of the linear theory of elasticity follow from the nonlinear theory considered is established. An approximate solution of the nonlinear problem for the potentials is obtained by the small-parameter method, which reduces the problem to a sequence of linear problems of the same type, in which the zeroth approximation corresponds to the problem of linear elasticity. The method is used to obtain both exact and approximate solutions for the problem of the extension of a plate with an elliptic hole. In these solutions, the behavior of stresses on the hole contour is illustrated by graphs.