Anticavitation and Differential Growth in Elastic Shells

Elastic anticavitation is the phenomenon of a void in an elastic solid collapsing on itself. Under the action of mechanical loading alone typical materials do not admit anticavitation. We study the possibility of anticavitation as a consequence of an imposed differential growth. Working in the geometry of a spherical shell, we seek radial growth functions which cause the shell to deform to a solid sphere. It is shown, surprisingly, that most material models do not admit full anticavitation, even when infinite growth or resorption is imposed at the inner surface of the shell. However, void collapse can occur in a limiting sense when radial and circumferential growth are properly balanced. Growth functions which diverge or vanish at a point arise naturally in a cumulative growth process. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.