 Elastic stiffness tensor

An elastic stiffness tensor maps a small displacement gradient tensor to the stress tensor. Minor symmetries in each index pair ensure symmetric stress and dependence only on symmetric strain; major symmetry $c_{ijpq}=c_{pqij}$ follows from an elastic energy and underlies reciprocity. Stability requires positive elastic energy on nonzero strains. In an isotropic material, $c_{ijpq}=\lambda {\delta }_{ij}{\delta }_{pq}+\mu ({\delta }_{ip}{\delta }_{jq}+{\delta }_{iq}{\delta }_{jp})$, with Lamé parameters $\lambda ,\mu$.