Global existence for three‐dimensional incompressible isotropic elastodynamics

The existence of global‐in‐time classical solutions to the Cauchy problem for incompressible, nonlinear, isotropic elastodynamics for small initial displacements is proved. The generalized energy method is used to obtain strong dispersive estimates that are needed for long‐time stability. This requires the use of weighted local decay estimates for the linearized equations, which are obtained as a special case of a new general result for certain isotropic symmetric hyperbolic systems. In addition, the pressure that arises as a Lagrange multiplier to enforce the incompressibility constraint is estimated as a nonlinear term. The incompressible elasticity equations are inherently linearly degenerate in the isotropic case; i.e., the equations satisfy a null condition necessary for global existence in three dimensions. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.