Beyond polyconvexity: an existence result for a class of quasiconvex hyperelastic materials

This article contains an existence result for a class of quasiconvex stored energy functions satisfying the material non‐interpenetrability condition, which primarily obstructs applying classical techniques from the vectorial calculus of variations to nonlinear elasticity. The fundamental concept of reversibility serves as the starting point for a theory of nonlinear elasticity featuring the basic duality inherent to the Eulerian and Lagrangian points of view. Motivated by this concept, split‐quasiconvex stored energy functions are shown to exhibit properties, which are very alluding from a mathematical point of view. For instance, any function with finite energy is automatically a Sobolev homeomorphism; existence of minimizers can be readily established and first variation formulae hold. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.