Conservation laws in elasticity

In this paper the basic results involved in the application of Noether's theorem relating symmetry groups and conservation laws to the variational problems of homogeneous elastostatics are outlined. General methods and conditions for the existence of variational and generalized symmetries are presented. Applications will be considered in subsequent papers in this series.The research reported here was supported in part by the U. S. National Science Foundation, Grant NSF MCS 81-00786.