In General There Are No Unsheared Tetrads

Suppose the principal stretches are all different at a point P in a deformed body. In this case, it has been shown [1] that generally there is an infinity of non coplanar infinitesimal material line elements at P which remain unsheared following the deformation – that is, the angle between the arms of each pair of material line elements forming the triad remains unchanged. Here it is shown that in this case when all three principal stretches at P are different, there is no set of four infinitesimal material line elements, no three of which are coplanar, and such that the angle between each pair of the six pairs of material line elements is unchanged following the deformation. It is only when all three principal stretches at P are equal to each other, that there are unsheared tetrads at P, and in that case all tetrads are unsheared. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.