Brittle fracture in linearly elastic plates

Abstract

In this work we derive by Gamma-convergence techniques a model for brittle fracture linearly elastic plates. Precisely, we start from a brittle linearly elastic thin film with positive thickness $ρ$ and study the limit as $ρ$ tends to 0. The analysis is performed with no a priori restrictions on the admissible displacements and on the geometry of the fracture set. The limit model is characterized by a Kirchhoff-Love type of structure.