A new duality approach to elasticity

The displacement-traction problem of three-dimensional linearized elasticity can be posed as three different minimization problems, depending on whether the displacement vector field, or the stress tensor field, or the strain tensor field, is the unknown. The objective of this paper is to put these three different formulations of the same problem in a new perspective, by means of LegendreFenchel duality theory. More specifically, we show that both the displacement and strain formulations can be viewed as Legendre-Fenchel dual problems to the stress formulation. We also show that each corresponding Lagrangian has a saddle-point, thus fully justifying this new duality approach to elasticity.