A geometrically exact Cosserat shell-model including size effects, avoiding degeneracy in the thin shell limit. Part I: Formal dimensional reduction for elastic plates and existence of minimizers for positive Cosserat couple modulus

This contribution is concerned with a consistent formal dimensional reduction of a previously introduced finite-strain three-dimensional Cosserat micropolar elasticity model to the two-dimensional situation of thin plates and shells. Contrary to the direct modelling of a shell as a Cosserat surface with additional directors, we obtain the shell model from the Cosserat bulk model which already includes a triad of rigid directors. The reduction is achieved by assumed kinematics, quadratic through the thickness. The three-dimensional transverse boundary conditions can be evaluated analytically in terms of the assumed kinematics and determines exactly two appearing coefficients in the chosen ansatz. Further simplifications with subsequent analytical integration through the thickness determine the reduced model in a variational setting. The resulting membrane energy turns out to be a quadratic, elliptic, first order, non degenerate energy in contrast to classical approaches. The bending contribution is augmented by a curvature term representing an additional stiffness of the Cosserat model and the corresponding system of balance equations remains of second order. The lateral boundary conditions for simple support are non-standard. The model includes size-effects, transverse shear resistance, drilling degrees of freedom and accounts implicitly for thickness extension and asymmetric shift of the midsurface. The formal thin shell membrane limit without classical h(3)-bending term is non-degenerate due to the additional Cosserat curvature stiffness and control of drill rotations. In our formulation, the drill-rotations are strictly related to the size-effects of the bulk model and not introduced artificially for numerical convenience. Upon linearization with zero Cosserat couple modulus mu(c)=0 we recover the well known infinitesimal-displacement Reissner-Mindlin model without size-effects and without drill-rotations. It is shown that the dimensionally reduced Cosserat formulation is well-posed for positive Cosserat couple modulus mu(c)>0 by means of the direct methods of variations along the same line of argument which showed the well-posedness of the three-dimensional Cosserat bulk model [72].