Volumetric Growth in Linear Elasticity Driven by an Optimality Criterion

Using linearized elasticity as a convenient mechanical framework, we show that volumetric growth can be formulated as an optimization-driven process in which the growth tensor is determined implicitly by constrained optimization rather than prescribed through phenomenological evolution laws. At each incremental step, the displacement and growth fields satisfy equilibrium, mass-balance constraints, and an irreversibility condition enforcing accretive growth, while an objective functional encodes the driving mechanism of the process. Finite element discretization leads to a finite-dimensional constrained minimization problem in the growth variables alone and makes explicit the interpretation of the evolution as a projected gradient flow. Numerical examples illustrate the proposed framework.