Finite strain––isotropic hyperelasticity

Abstract

This paper presents a strain energy density for isotropic hyperelastic materials. The strain energy density is decomposed into a compressible and incompressible component. The incompressible component is the same as the generalized Mooney expression while the compressible component is shown to be a function of the volume invariant J only. The strain energy density proposed is used to investigate problems involving incompressible isotropic materials such as rubber under homogeneous strain, compressible isotropic materials under high hydrostatic pressure and volume change under uniaxial tension. Comparison with experimental data is good. The formulation is also used to derive a strain energy density expression for compressible isotropic neo-Hookean materials. The constitutive relationship for the second Piola–Kirchhoff stress tensor and its physical counterpart, involves the contravariant Almansi strain tensor. The stress stretch relationship comprises of a component associated with volume constrained distortion and a hydrostatic pressure which results in volumetric dilation. An important property of this constitutive relationship is that the hydrostatic pressure component of the stress vector which is associated with volumetric dilation will have no shear component on any surface in any configuration. This same property is not true for a neo-Hookean Green’s strain–second Piola–Kirchhoff stress tensor formulation.