A function theory for thin elastic shells

It is well known in the theory of elastic shells that a first order approximation using the shell thickness as an expansion parameter leads to the membrane theory of shells. The membrane equations have as solutions thegeneralized analytic functions. These functions have been exhaustively studied by Ilya N. Vekua [6], [7] and his students. R.P. Gilbert and J. Hile [3] introduced an extension of these systems to include elliptic systems of 2n equations in the plane and named the solutions of these systemsgeneralized hyperanalytic functions.It is shown in this paper that the next order approximation to the shell, which permits, moreover, the introduction of bending, may be described in terms of the generalized hyperanalytic functions. It is strongly suspected that the higher order approximations may also be described in terms of corresponding hypercomplex systems.