Title: Derivation, characterization, and application of complete orthonormal sequences for representing general three-dimensional states of residual stress

Abstract: Residual stresses are self-equilibrated stresses on unloaded bodies. Owing to their complex origins, it is useful to develop functions that can be linearly combined to represent any sufficiently regular residual stress field. In this work, we develop orthonormal sequences that span the set of all square-integrable residual stress fields on a given three-dimensional region. These sequences are obtained by extremizing the most general quadratic, positive-definite functional of the stress gradient on the set of all sufficiently regular residual stress fields subject to a prescribed normalization condition; each such functional yields a sequence. For the special case where the sixth-order coefficient tensor in the functional is homogeneous and isotropic and the fourth-order coefficient tensor in the normalization condition is proportional to the identity tensor, we obtain a three-parameter subfamily of sequences. Upon a suitable parameter normalization, we find that the viable parameter space corresponds to a semi-infinite strip. For a further specialized spherically symmetric case, we obtain analytical expressions for the sequences and the associated Lagrange multipliers. Remarkably, these sequences change little across the entire parameter strip. To illustrate the applicability of our theoretical findings, we employ three such spherically symmetric sequences to accurately approximate two standard residual stress fields. Our work opens avenues for future exploration into the implications of different sequences, achieved by altering both the spatial distribution and the material symmetry class of the coefficient tensors, toward specific objectives.