Generalized Clapeyron's theorem

Abstract: Clapeyron's Theorem in classical linear elasticity provides a way to explicitly express the energy stored in an equilibrium configuration in terms of the work of the forces applied on the boundary. We derive several new integral relations which can be viewed as nonlinear analogs of this classical result, reinterpreting them as rather general statements within Calculus of Variations. In the framework of nonlinear elasticity these relations reflect various partial symmetries of the material response, for instance, scale-invariance or scaling homogeneity. In particular, when the energy functional is scale-free, the obtained result can be interpreted as the Generalized Clapeyron's Theorem (GCT). Remarkably, it combines rather naturally the work of physical and configurational forces. We present a series of illuminating case studies showing the variety of applications of various obtained relations in different seemingly unrelated problems of mechanics.