Chapter 4

STRESS FUNCTION
FORMULATION

4.1 The concept of a scalar stress function

Newton’s law of gravitation states that two heavy bodies attract each other with a
force proportional to the inverse square of their distance — thus it is essentially a
vector theory, being concerned with forces. However, the idea of a scalar gravitational
potential can be introduced by defining the work done in moving a unit mass from
infinity to a given point in the field. The principle of conservation of energy requires
that this be a unique function of position and it is easy to show that the gravitational
force at any point is then proportional to the gradient of this scalar potential. Thus,
the original vector problem is reduced to a problem about a scalar potential and its
derivatives.
In general, scalars are much easier to deal with than vectors. In particular, they
lend themselves very easily to coördinate transformations, whereas vectors (and to an
even greater extent tensors) require a set of special transformation rules (e.g. Mohr’s
circle).
In certain field theories, the scalar potential has an obvious physical significance.
For example, in the conduction of heat, the temperature is a scalar potential in terms
of which the vector heat flux can be defined. However, it is not necessary to the
method that such a physical interpretation can be given. The gravitational potential
can be given a physical interpretation as discussed above, but this interpretation may
never feature in the solution of a particular problem, which is simply an excercise
in the solution of a certain partial differential equation with appropriate boundary
conditions. In the theory of elasticity, we make use of scalar potentials called stress
functions or displacement functions which have no obvious physical meaning other
than their use in defining stress or displacement components in terms of derivatives.

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42 CHAPTER 4. STRESS FUNCTION FORMULATION

4.2 Choice of a suitable form

In the choice of a suitable form for a stress or displacement function, there is only one
absolute rule — that the operators which define the relationship between the scalar
and vector (or tensor) quantities should indeed define a vector (or tensor).
For example, it is appropriate to define the displacement in terms of the first
derivatives (the gradient) of a scalar or to define the stress components in terms of
the second derivatives of a scalar, since the second derivatives of a scalar form the
components of a Cartesian tensor.
In effect, what we are doing in requiring this similarity of form between the def-
initions and the defined quantity is ensuring that the relationship is preserved in
coördinate transformations. It would be quite possible to work out an elasticity prob-
lem in terms of the displacement components treating these as essentially
scalar quantities which vary with position — indeed this was a technique which was
used in early theories. However, we would then get into trouble as soon as we tried
to make any statements about quantities in other coordinate directions. By contrast,
if we define (for example) it
immediately follows that for any

4.3 The Airy stress function

The two-dimensional problem of elasticity is most easily reduced to a tractable po-
tential problem by representing the stress components in the form

This representation was introduced by G.B.Airy 1 in 1862 and is therefore gen-

erally referred to as the Airy stress function. It is not the most obvious form. It
would seem more natural to write
and indeed this also leads to a representation which is widely used as part of the
general three-dimensional solution (see Chapter 18 below).
It is easily verified that equation (4.1) transforms as a Cartesian tensor as required.
For example, using (1.32) we can write

from which using (1.9 and 4.1) we deduce that as required.

1
For a good historical survey of the development of potential function methods in Elasticity, see
H.M.Westergaard, Theory of Elasticity and Plasticity, Dover, New York (1964), Chapter 2.