A perturbation analysis of pure torsion of incompressible hyperelastic cylinders

Abstract

The stretch-based formulation of basic problems for incompressible isotropic hyperelastic materials has been the subject of renewed recent attention largely motivated by application to modelling the mechanical response of soft tissues. Here we are concerned with the classical problem of simple torsion of a circular cylinder which has in the past been primarily investigated by employing the classical approach of Rivlin in terms of invariants of the Cauchy–Green deformation tensors. Here we propose a perturbation approach to the pure torsion problem for thin (but not necessarily infinitesimally thin) cylindrical specimens motivated by potential applications to rubber-like or biological filaments and for the infinitesimal twisting of thick cylinders. The advantage of this approach is that the results are valid for all strain–energy functions whether based in terms of the principal stretches or in terms of the classical deformation invariants. The asymptotic results obtained for the resultant force and moment are applied to the special case of the one-term stretch-based Ogden model. In particular, a prediction of a transition in the Poynting effect for values of the Ogden parameter α>6 is obtained. Other illustrative examples for both invariant and stretch-based strain energies are described. In view of the complexity of a general analysis of torsion for arbitrary strain energies, the perturbation approach provides a viable alternative for assessing the resultant force and moment.