Elastic energy

Elastic energy is the recoverable energy stored by deforming an elastic material. In the small-deflection model of an elastic filament, the bending contribution is a positive quadratic functional of the curvatures, such as $\frac{1}{2}\int (A{y}^{\prime \prime 2}+B{z}^{\prime \prime 2})dx$. Work by applied loads must also be included when minimizing the total potential energy.