Kolosov-Muskhelishvili complex potentials in plane elasticity
Potenciales complejos de Kolosov y Muskhelishvili en elasticidad plana
- Date
- 1909 (Kolosov) / 1933 (Muskhelishvili) · confidence medium
- Place
- Tbilisi, Georgia
- Credited to
- Gury Kolosov (Tartu) and Nikoloz Muskhelishvili (Tbilisi and Leningrad)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
A method that expresses the stresses and displacements of a plane elastic solid using two analytic functions of a complex variable, solving problems of holes, cracks and contacts. Muskhelishvili's 1933 book made it a standard tool.
The idea is Kolosov's (1909 thesis in Tartu, now Estonia), whose student Muskhelishvili developed it in Tbilisi and Leningrad; priority is shared between the two.
What it led to
- fracture mechanics of cracks in plane media
- dislocation theory and contact mechanics
- the Soviet tradition of mathematical elasticity (Vekua, Galin)