On the sign of the internal stresses in a problem of plane elasticity

An elastic plane body, shaped like a circular ring or a disk, is subjected to radial surface forces varying according to a sinusoidal law. The existence of a tensile region included in a purely compressive one is proven and its asymptotic behaviour studied when the surface forces converge to two concentrated loads acting along the same diameter. The results show that any maximum principle for the principal stress components would require conditions stronger than the simple negativity of both on the boundary of the domain.