title: Relaxation of the single-slip condition in strain-gradient plasticity.
abstract: We consider the variational formulation of both geometrically linear and geometrically nonlinear elasto-plasticity subject to a class of hard single-slip conditions. Such side conditions typically render the associated boundary-value problems non-convex. We show that, for a large class of non-smooth plastic distortions, a given single-slip condition (specification of Burgers vectors) can be relaxed by introducing a microstructure through a two-stage process of mollification and lamination. The relaxed model can be thought of as an aid to simulating macroscopic plastic behaviour without the need to resolve arbitrarily fine spatial scales.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences , Durham University , Durham, UK.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Anguige
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences , Durham University , Durham, UK.
authors.forename: Patrick W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Dondl
keywords: calculus of variations; plasticity; relaxation; single slip; strain-gradient plasticity