The isotropic Cosserat shell model including terms up to $O(h^5)$. Part II: Existence of minimizers

We show the existence of global minimizers for a geometrically nonlinear isotropic elastic Cosserat 6-parameter shell model. The proof of the main theorem is based on the direct methods of the calculus of variations using essentially the convexity of the energy in the nonlinear strain and curvature measures. We first show the existence of the solution for the theory including $O(h^5)$ terms. The energy allows us to show the coercivity for terms up to order $O(h^5)$ and the convexity of the energy. Secondly, we consider only that part of the energy including $O(h^3)$ terms. In this case the obtained minimization problem is not the same as those previously considered in the literature, since the influence of the curved initial shell configuration appears explicitly in the expression of the coefficients of the energies for the reduced two-dimensional variational problem and additional mixed bending-curvature and curvature terms are present. While in the theory including $O(h^5)$ the conditions on the thickness $h$ are those considered in the modelling process and they are independent of the constitutive parameter, in the $O(h^3)$-case the coercivity is proven on some more restrictive conditions under the thickness $h$.

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