Normality Condition in Elasticity

Strong local minimizers with surfaces of gradient discontinuity appear in variational problems when the energy density function is not rank-one convex. In this paper we show that stability of such surfaces is related to stability outside the surface via a single jump relation that can be regarded as interchange stability condition. Although this relation appears in the setting of equilibrium elasticity theory, it is remarkably similar to the well known normality condition which plays a central role in the classical plasticity theory.