Bifurcation of cavitation solutions for incompressible transversely isotropic hyper-elastic materials

Abstract

In this paper, the bifurcation problem of void formation and growth in a solid circular cylinder, composed of an incompressible, transversely isotropic hyper-elastic material, under a uniform radial tensile boundary dead load and an axial stretch is examined. At first, the deformation of the cylinder, containing an undetermined parameter-the void radius, is given by using the condition of incompressibility of the material. Then the exact analytic formulas to determine the critical load and the bifurcation values for the parameter are obtained by solving the differential equation for the deformation function. Thus, an analytic solution for bifurcation problems in incompressible anisotropic hyper-elastic materials is obtained. The solution depends on the degree of anisotropy of the material. It shows that the bifurcation may occur locally to the right or to the left, depending on the degree of anisotropy, and the condition for the bifurcation to the right or to the left is discussed. The stress distributions subsequent to the cavitation are given and the jumping and concentration of stresses are discussed. The stability of solutions is discussed through comparison of the associated potential energies. The bifurcation to the left is a `snap cavitation'. The growth of a pre-existing void in the cylinder is also observed. The results for a similar problem in three dimensions were obtained by Polignone and Horgan.