Computational polyconvexification of isotropic functions

Abstract

Based on the characterization of the polyconvex envelope of isotropic functions by their signed singular value representations, we propose a simple algorithm for the numerical approximation of the polyconvex envelope. Instead of operating on the $d^2$-dimensional space of matrices, the algorithm requires only the computation of the convex envelope of a function on a $d$-dimensional manifold, which is easily realized by standard algorithms. The significant speedup associated with the dimensional reduction from $d^2$ to $d$ is demonstrated in a series of numerical experiments.