In the mechanics of inviscid conservative fluids, it is classical to generate the equations of dynamics by formulating with adequate variables, that the pressure integral calculated in the time-space domain corresponding to the motion of the continuous medium is stationary. The present study extends this principle to the dynamics of large deformations for isentropic motions in thermo-elastic bodies: we use a new way of writing the equations of motion in terms of potentials and we substitute the trace of the stress tensor for the pressure term.

Categories: physics.class-ph math-ph math.MP

Variational Principle Involving the Stress Tensor in Elastodynamics