Past exam of the elasticity and plasticity course of the University of Oxford / 2010 / 3 / a / Solution

Differentiate the displacement components. The shear strains involving $z$ vanish because $u_z=-w_x$ and $v_z=-w_y$. The full infinitesimal strain tensor isIn particular $\mathrm{tr}\mathcal{E}=(2\nu -1)(a+c)z/(1-\nu )$. Substituting the Lamé coefficients into the constitutive law givesFor example ${\tau }_{zz}=\lambda \mathrm{tr}\mathcal{E}+2\mu e_{zz}=0$: the thickness-direction strain supplies exactly the plane-stress Poisson correction. Also ${\tau }_{xy}=-Ebz/(1+\nu )$, confirming the off-diagonal factor.