Existence and uniqueness results for a nonlinear Budiansky-Sanders shell model

Abstract

A nonlinear shell model is studied in this paper. This is a nonlinear variant of the Budiansky-Sanders linear shell model. Under some suitable assumptions on the magnitude of the applied force, we will prove the existence of a minimizer for this shell model. In addition, we will also show that our existence result can be applied to all kinds of geometries of the middle surface of the shell. We will also show that the minimizer found in this fashion is unique, provided the applied forces are small enough. Our result hence extends the one given by Destuynder in [1].