Chapter 5

 
Analytical techniques and solutions for linear elastic solids
 
 
 
5.2 Airy Function Solution to Plane Stress and
Strain Static Linear Elastic Problems
 
In this section we outline a general technique for solving 2D static
linear elasticity problems.  The technique is known as the `Airy Stress
Function’ method.
 
A typical plane elasticity problem is illustrated in the picture.  The
solid is two dimensional, which means either that
1.       The solid is a thin sheet, with small thickness h, and is loaded only in the 
 plane.  In this case the plane stress solution is applicable
2.       The solid is very long in the   direction, is prevented from stretching parallel to the   
axis, and every cross section is loaded identically and only in the   plane. 
In this case, the plane strain solution is applicable.
 
Some additional basic assumptions and restrictions are:
 The Airy stress function is applicable only to isotropic solids.  We will assume that the solid has
Young’s modulus E, Poisson’s ratio   and mass density 
 The Airy Stress function can only be used if the body force has a special form. Specifically, the
requirement is

where   is a scalar function of position.  Fortunately, most

practical body forces can be expressed in this form, including gravity.
 The Airy Stress Function approach works best for problems where a solid is subjected to
prescribed tractions on its boundary, rather than prescribed displacements.  Specifically, we
will assume that the solid is loaded by boundary tractions 
.
 
 
5.2.1 The Airy solution in rectangular coordinates
 
The Airy function procedure can then be summarized as follows:
1.       Begin by finding a scalar function   (known as the Airy potential)
which satisfies:

where

In addition   must satisfy the following traction boundary conditions on the surface of the
solid

where   are the components of a unit vector normal to the boundary.

2.       Given  , the stress field within the region of interest can be calculated from the formulas
 3.       If the strains are needed, they may be computed from the stresses using the elastic stress
strain relations.
4.       If the displacement field is needed, it may be computed by integrating the strains, following the
procedure described in Section 2.1.20.  An example (in polar coordinates) is given in Section
5.2.4 below.
 
Although it is easier to solve for   than it is to solve for stress directly, this is still not a trivial
exercise.  Usually, one guesses a suitable form for  , as illustrated below.  This may seem highly
unsatisfactory, but remember that we are essentially integrating a system of PDEs.  The general procedure
to evaluate any integral is to guess a solution, differentiate it, and see if the guess was correct. 
 
 
5.2.2 Demonstration that the Airy solution satisfies the governing equations
 
Recall that to solve a linear elasticity problem, we need to satisfy the following equations:

 Displacement strain relation 

 Stress strain relation 

 Equilibrium Equation   
 where we have neglected thermal expansion, for simplicity.
 
The Airy function is chosen so as to satisfy the equilibrium equations automatically.  For plane stress or
plane strain conditions, the equilibrium equations reduce to

Substitute for the stresses in terms of   to see that

so that the equilibrium equations are satisfied automatically for any choice of  .  To ensure that the
other two equations are satisfied, we first compute the strains using the elastic stress-strain equations. 
Recall that

with   for plane stress and   for plane strain.  Hence

Next, recall that the strain displacement relation is satisfied provided that the strains obey the
compatibility conditions
  

     

All but the first of these equations are satisfied automatically by any plane strain or plane stress field.
Substitute into the first equation in terms of stress to see that

Finally, substitute into this horrible looking equation for stress in terms of   and rearrange to see that
A few more weeks of algebra reduces this to

which is the result we were looking for.

 
This proves that the Airy representation satisfies the governing equations.  A second important question
is   is it possible to find an Airy function for all 2D plane stress and plane strain problems?  If not, the
method would be useless, because you couldn’t tell ahead of time whether   existed for the problem
you were trying to solve.  Fortunately it is possible to prove that all properly posed 2D elasticity problems
do have an Airy representation.
 
 
 
5.2.3 The Airy solution in cylindrical-polar coordinates
 
Boundary value problems involving cylindrical regions are best solved using
Cylindrical-polar coordinates.  It is worth recording the Airy function equations
for this coordinate system.
 
In a 2D cylindrical-polar coordinate system, a point in the solid is specified by its

radial distance   from the origin and the

angle  .  The solution is independent of z.  The Airy

function is written as a function of the coordinates as  .  Vector quantities
(displacement, body force) and tensor quantities (strain, stress) are expressed as components in the
basis   shown in the picture.
 
The governing equation for the Airy function in this coordinate system is
The state of stress is related to the Airy function by

In polar coordinates the strains are related to the stresses by

for plane strain, while

for plane stress.  The displacements must be determined by integrating these strains following the
procedure similar to that outlined in Section 2.1.20.  To this end, let 
 denote the displacement vector.  The strain-displacement relations in
polar coordinates are:

These can be integrated using a procedure analogous to that outlined in Section 2.1.20.  An example is
given in Section 5.2.5.
 
In the following sections, we give several examples of Airy function solutions to boundary value
problems.
 
 
 
 
5.2.4 Airy function solution to the end loaded
cantilever
 
Consider a cantilever beam, with length L, height 2a and
out-of-plane thickness b, as shown in the figure. The
beam is made from an isotropic linear elastic solid with
Young’s modulus   and Poisson ratio  . The top and bottom of the beam 
 are traction free, the left hand end is subjected to a resultant force P, and the right hand end is
clamped.  Assume that b<<a, so that a state of plane stress is developed in the beam. An approximate
solution to the stress in the beam can be calculated from the Airy function

You can easily show that this function satisfies the governing equation for the Airy function. The stresses
follow as

 
To see that this solution satisfies the boundary conditions, note that
1.       The top and bottom surfaces of the beam   are traction free
(   ).  Since the normal is in the   direction on these surfaces,
 this requires that  .  The stress field clearly satisfies
this condition.
2.       The plane stress assumption automatically satisfies boundary conditions on 
.
3.       The traction boundary condition on the left hand end of the beam (   ) was not
specified in detail: instead, we only required that the resultant of the traction acting on the surface
is  .  The normal to the surface at the left hand end of the beam is in the 
 direction, so the traction vector is

The resultant force can be calculated by integrating the traction over the end of the beam:

The stresses thus satisfy the boundary condition.  Note that by Saint-Venant’s principle, other
distributions of traction with the same resultant will induce the same stresses sufficiently far
(   ) from the end of the beam.
4.       The boundary conditions on the right hand end of the beam are not satisfied exactly.  The exact
solution should satisfy both   and   on 
.  The displacement field corresponding to the stress distribution was calculated in the
example problem in Sect 2.1.20, where we found that
 where   are constants that may be selected to satisfy the boundary condition
as far as possible.  We can satisfy   and   at some, but
not all, points on  .  The choice is arbitrary.  Usually the boundary condition
is approximated by requiring 
 at  ,  .  This gives 
,   and 
.   By Saint-Venant’s principle, applying other boundary
conditions (including the exact boundary condition) will not influence the stresses and
displacements sufficiently far from the end.
 
 
 
5.2.5 2D Line load acting perpendicular to the surface of an infinite solid
 
As a second example, the stress fields due to a line load magnitude P per unit
out-of-plane length acting on the surface of a homogeneous, isotropic half-
space can be generated from the Airy function

The formulas in the preceding section yield

The stresses in the   basis are

 
The method outlined in section 5.2.3 can be used to calculate the displacements: the procedure is
described in detail below to provide a representative example.  For plane strain deformation, we find
to within an arbitrary rigid motion.  Note that the displacements vary as log(r) so they are unbounded both
at the origin and at infinity.  Moreover, the displacements due to any distribution of traction that exerts a
nonzero resultant force on the surface will also be unbounded at infinity. 
 
It is easy to see that this solution satisfies all the relevant boundary conditions.  The surface is traction
free (   ) except at r=0.  To see that
the stresses are consistent with a vertical point force, note that the resultant vertical force exerted by the
tractions acting on the dashed curve shown in the picture can be calculated as

 
The expressions for displacement can be derived as follows.  Substituting the expression for stress into
the stress-strain laws and using the strain-displacement relations yields

Integrating
where   is a function of   to be determined.  Similarly, considering the hoop stresses
gives

Rearrange and integrate with respect to 

where   is a function of   to be determined.  Finally, substituting for stresses into
the expression for shear strain shows that

Inserting the expressions for displacement and simplifying gives

The two terms in parentheses are functions of   and r, respectively, and so must both be separately
equal to zero to satisfy this expression for all possible values of   and r. Therefore
This ODE has solution

The second equation gives

which has solution  .  The constants A,B,C represent an arbitrary rigid

displacement, and can be taken to be zero.  This gives the required answer.
 
 
5.2.6 2D Line load acting parallel to the surface of an infinite solid
 
Similarly, the stress fields due to a line load magnitude P per unit out-of-
plane length acting tangent to the surface of a homogeneous, isotropic half-
space can be generated from the Airy function

The formulas in the preceding section yield

The method outlined in the preceding section can be used to calculate the displacements. The procedure
gives

to within an arbitrary rigid motion. 

 
The stresses and displacements in the   basis are
 
 
5.2.7 Arbitrary pressure acting on a flat surface
 
The principle of superposition can be used to extend the point force solutions to arbitrary pressures acting
on a surface. For example, we can find the (plane strain) solution for a uniform pressure acting on the
strip of width 2a on the surface of a half-space by distributing the point force solution appropriately.
 
Distributing point forces with magnitude 
 over the loaded region shows that
 
 
5.2.8 Uniform normal pressure acting on a strip
 
For the particular case of a uniform pressure, the integrals can be evaluated to show that
where   and 

 
 
 
5.2.9 Stresses near the tip of a crack
 
Consider an infinite solid, which contains a semi-infinite crack on the
(x1,x3) plane. Suppose that the solid deforms in plane strain and is
subjected to bounded stress at infinity.  The stress field near the tip of
the crack can be derived from the Airy function

Here,   and   are two constants, known as mode I and mode II stress intensity factors,
respectively.  They quantify the magnitudes of the stresses near the crack tip, as shown below. Their role
will be discussed in more detail when we discuss fracture mechanics. The stresses can be calculated as
Equivalent expressions in rectangular coordinates are

while the displacements can be calculated by integrating the strains, with the result
Note that this displacement field is valid for plane strain deformation only.
 
Observe that the stress intensity factor has the bizarre units of