Introduction to the Variational Formulation in Mechanics

ADefinitions and Notations

A.1 Introduction

In order to make the presentation of this book more self‐contained, this appendix briefly presents some concepts and results from linear algebra, real analysis, and convex analysis, as well as some notations that are utilized throughout this book. We also provide bibliographic references so that the reader can get a more rigorous grasp of the mathematical concepts involved in the different topics, which are relevant for a better understanding of the variational formulation in mechanics.

A.2 Sets

A set is a collection of elements . If is an element of the set we say that belongs to , and is represented by . With we indicate that the element ...