Polyconvex potentials, invertible deformations, and a thermodynamically consistent formulation of the equations of the nonlinear theory of elasticity

It is shown that the nonstationary finite-deformation thermoelasticity equations in Lagrangian and Eulerian coordinates can be written in a thermodynamically consistent Godunov canonical form satisfying the Friedrichs hyperbolicity conditions, provided that the elastic potential is a convex function of entropy and of the minors of the elastic deformation Jacobian matrix. In other words, the elastic potential is assumed to be polyconvex in the sense of Ball. It is well known that Ball’s approach to proving the existence and invertibility of stationary elastic deformations assumes that the elastic potential essentially depends on the second-order minors of the Jacobian matrix (i.e., on the cofactor matrix). However, elastic potentials constructed as approximations of rheological laws for actual materials generally do not satisfy this requirement. Instead, they may depend, for example, only on the first-order minors (i.e., the matrix elements) and on the Jacobian determinant. A method for constructing and regularizing polyconvex elastic potentials is proposed that does not require an explicit dependence on the cofactor matrix. It guarantees that the elastic deformations are quasiisometries and preserves the Lame constants of the elastic material.