Finite extension and torsion of fiber-reinforced non-linearly elastic circular cylinders

In the context of the theory of non-linear elasticity for rubber-like materials, the problem of finite extension and torsion of a circular bar or tube has been widely investigated. More recently, this problem has attracted considerable attention in studies on the biomechanics of soft tissues and has been applied, for example, to examine the mechanical behavior of passive papillary muscles of the heart. A recent study in non-linear elasticity was concerned specifically with the effects of strain-stiffening on the response of solid circular cylinders in the combined deformation of torsion superimposed on axial extension. The cylinders are composed of incompressible isotropic non-linearly elastic materials that undergo severe strain-stiffening in the stress–stretch response. For two specific material models that reflect limiting chain extensibility at the molecular level, it was shown that, in the absence of an additional axial force, a transition value γ=γ_t of the axial stretch exists such that for γ<γ_t, the stretched cylinder tends to elongate on twisting whereas for γ>γ_t, the stretched cylinder tends to shorten on twisting. These results are in sharp contrast with those for classical models for rubber such as the Mooney–Rivlin (and neo-Hookean) models that predict that the stretched circular cylinder always tends to further elongate on twisting. Here we investigate similar issues for fiber-reinforced transversely isotropic circular cylinders. We consider a class of incompressible anisotropic materials with strain-energy densities that are of logarithmic form in the anisotropic invariant. These models reflect limited fiber extensibility and in the biomechanics context model the stretch induced strain-stiffening of collagen fibers on loading. They have been shown to model the mechanical behavior of fiber-reinforced rubber and many fibrous soft biological tissues. The consideration of anisotropy leads to a more elaborate mechanical response than was found for isotropic strain-stiffening materials. The results obtained here have important implications for extension–torsion tests for fiber-reinforced materials, for example in the development of accurate extension–torsion test protocols for determination of material properties of soft tissues.     

On Extension and Torsion of Strain-Stiffening Rubber-Like Elastic Circular Cylinders

This paper is concerned with investigation of the effects of strain-stiffening on the response of solid circular cylinders in the combined deformation of torsion superimposed on axial extension. The cylinders are composed of incompressible isotropic nonlinearly elastic materials. Our primary focus is on materials that undergo severe strain-stiffening in the stress-stretch response. In particular, we consider two particular phenomenological constitutive models for such materials that reflect limiting chain extensibility at the molecular level. The axial stretch γ and twist that can be sustained in cylinders composed of such materials are shown to be constrained in a coupled fashion. It is shown that, in the absence of an additional axial force, a transition value γ=γ _t of the axial stretch exists such that for γ<γ _t , the stretched cylinder tends to elongate on twisting whereas for γ>γ _t , the stretched cylinder tends to shorten on twisting. These results are in sharp contrast with those for classical models such as the Mooney-Rivlin (and neo-Hookean) models that predict that the stretched circular cylinder always tends to further elongate on twisting. We also obtain results for materials modeled by the well-known exponential strain-energy widely used in biomechanics applications. This model reflects a strain-stiffening that is less abrupt than that for the limiting chain extensibility models. Surprisingly, it turns out that the results in this case are somewhat more complicated. For a fixed stiffening parameter, provided that the stretch is sufficiently small, the stretched bar always tends to elongate on twisting in the absence of an additional axial force. However, for sufficiently large stretch, the cylinder tends to shorten on undergoing sufficiently small twist but then tends to elongate on further twisting. These results are of interest in view of the widespread use of exponential models in the context of the mechanics of soft biological tissues. The special case of pure torsion is also briefly considered. In this case, the resultant axial force required to maintain pure torsion is compressive for all the models discussed here. In the absence of such a force, the bar would elongate on twisting reflecting the celebrated Poynting effect.      

Elastic instabilities for strain-stiffening rubber-like spherical and cylindrical thin shells under inflation

This paper is concerned with investigation of the effects of strain-stiffening on the classical limit point instability that is well-known to occur in the inflation of internally pressurized rubber-like spherical thin shells (balloons) and circular cylindrical thin tubes composed of incompressible isotropic non-linearly elastic materials. For a variety of specific strain-energy densities that give rise to strain-stiffening in the stress-stretch response, the inflation pressure versus stretch relations are given explicitly and the non-monotonic character of the inflation curves is examined. While such results are known for constitutive models that exhibit a gradual stiffening (e.g. exponential and power-law models), our primary focus is on materials that undergo severe strain-stiffening in the stress-stretch response. In particular, we consider two phenomenological constitutive models that reflect limiting chain extensibility at the molecular level. It is shown that for materials with sufficiently low extensibility no limit point instability occurs and so stable inflation is then predicted for such materials. Potential applications of the results to the biomechanics of soft tissues are indicated.     

Inhomogeneous shearing of strain-stiffening rubber-like hollow circular cylinders

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of strain-stiffening for the classical problems of axial and azimuthal shearing of a hollow circular cylinder composed of an incompressible isotropic non-linearly elastic material. For some specific strain-energy densities that give rise to strain-stiffening in the stress–stretch response, the stresses and resultant axial forces are obtained in explicit closed form. While such results are well known for classical constitutive models such as the Mooney–Rivlin and neo-Hookean models, our main focus is on materials that undergo severe strain-stiffening in the stress–stretch response. In particular, we consider in detail two phenomenological constitutive models that reflect limiting chain extensibility at the molecular level and involve constraints on the deformation. The amount of shearing that tubes composed of such materials can sustain is limited by the constraint. Numerical results are also obtained for an exponential strain-energy that exhibits a less abrupt strain-stiffening effect. Potential applications of the results to the biomechanics of soft tissues are indicated.     

On the Normal Stresses in Simple Shearing of Fiber-Reinforced Nonlinearly Elastic Materials

We are concerned with a particular aspect of the simple shear problem within the framework of nonlinear elasticity for a class of incompressible transversely-isotropic fiber-reinforced materials. It is well known that, for isotropic hyperelastic materials, the normal stress effect characteristic of nonlinear elasticity is crucial in order to maintain a homogeneous deformation state in the bulk of the specimen. For the fiber-reinforced materials of concern here, we show that the confining traction that needs to be applied to the top and bottom faces of a block in order to maintain simple shear can be compressive or tensile depending on the degree of anisotropy and on the angle of orientation of the fibers. Inclusion of the second invariant in the isotropic part of the strain-energy used is shown to be of crucial importance in assessing the nature of the confining traction. In the absence of such an applied traction, an unconfined sample tends to bulge outwards or contract inwards perpendicular to the direction of shear. The character of the normal component of traction on the inclined faces is also investigated. The results are relevant to the development of accurate shear test protocols for the determination of constitutive properties of fiber-reinforced rubber-like materials and fibrous biological soft tissues.     

Mullins Effect for a Cylinder Subjected to Combined Extension and Torsion

We study the Mullins effect for a circular cylinder of incompressible, isotropic material under loading cycles of combined extension and torsion. The analysis is based on the constitutive model recently proposed in De Tommasi et al. (J. Rheol. 50: 495–512, 2006). This model assumes that the mechanical response at each material point results as a homogenized effect of a mixture of different materials with variable activation and breaking thresholds. We show the feasibility of this approach to treat complex, inhomogeneous deformations. In particular, we obtain for the generic loading path the analytical expressions of the stress field, of the axial force, and of the twisting moment. The proposed model exhibits the Mullins stress softening effect in the case of simple extension, simple torsion, and combined extension and torsion. We analyze in detail the path dependent behavior and the preconditioning effects.      

The trousers test for tearing of soft biomaterials

The mechanical modeling of rubber-like materials within the framework of nonlinear elasticity theory is well established. The application of such modeling to soft biomaterials is currently the subject of intense investigation. For soft biomaterials it is well known that exponential strain energy density models are particularly useful as they reflect the typical J-shaped stress-stretch stiffening response that is observed experimentally. The most celebrated of these models for isotropic hyperelastic materials are those of Fung and Demiray which depends only on the first strain invariant and its generalization by Vito that depends on both strain invariants. In the limit as the strain-stiffening parameter tends to zero, one recovers the neo-Hookean and Mooney–Rivlin models that are linear functions of the invariants. Here we apply these models to the analysis of the fracture or tearing of soft biomaterials. Attention is focused on a particular fracture test namely the trousers test where two legs of a cut specimen are pulled horizontally apart out of the plane of the test piece. It is shown that, in general, the location of the cut in the specimen plays a key role in the fracture analysis, and that the effect of the cut position depends crucially on the constitutive model employed. This dependence is characterized explicitly for the strain-stiffening exponential constitutive models considered. In contrast to the situation for rubber, our findings show that the critical driving force and fracture toughness in tearing of some soft biomaterials in the trousers test are virtually independent of the cut position.     

Plane strain bending of strain-stiffening rubber-like rectangular beams

This paper is concerned with investigation of the effects of strain-stiffening for the classical problem of plane strain bending by an end moment of a rectangular beam composed of an incompressible isotropic nonlinearly elastic material. For a variety of specific strain-energy densities that give rise to strain-stiffening in the stress–stretch response, the stresses and resultant moments are obtained explicitly. While such results are well known for classical constitutive models such as the Mooney-Rivlin and neo-Hookean models, our primary focus is on materials that undergo severe strain-stiffening in the stress–stretch response. In particular, we consider in detail two phenomenological constitutive models that reflect limiting chain extensibility at the molecular level and involve constraints on the deformation. The amount of bending that beams composed of such materials can sustain is limited by the constraint. Potential applications of the results to the biomechanics of soft tissues are indicated.     

On the Modeling of Extension-Torsion Experimental Data for Transversely Isotropic Biological Soft Tissues

For the problem of torsion superimposed on extension of incompressible nonlinearly elastic transversely isotropic circular cylinders, a simple asymptotic analysis is carried out on using a small parameter that reflects the moderate twisting of slender cylinders, which corresponds to a typical testing regime for biological soft tissue. The analysis is carried out for a subclass of strain-energy densities that reflect transversely isotropic material response. On using a four-parameter polynomial expression for the strain-energy density in terms of certain classical invariants, this analysis is shown to be in excellent agreement with experimental data obtained by other authors for rabbit papillary muscles. An explicit condition on the strain-energy density is obtained that determines whether the stretched cylinder tends to elongate or shorten on twisting. For the special case of pure torsion where no extension is allowed, this condition determines whether the classical or reverse Poynting effect occurs. For the rabbit papillary muscles, the theoretical results predict and the experimental results confirm that a reverse Poynting-type effect occurs where the stretched rabbit muscle tends to shorten on twisting.     

Biaxial Mechanical Evaluation of Planar Biological Materials

A fundamental goal in constitutive modeling is to predict the mechanical behavior of a material under a generalized loading state. To achieve this goal, rigorous experimentation involving all relevant deformations is necessary to obtain both the form and material constants of a strain-energy density function. For both natural biological tissues and tissue-derived soft biomaterials, there exist many physiological, surgical, and medical device applications where rigorous constitutive models are required. Since biological tissues are generally considered incompressible, planar biaxial testing allows for a two-dimensional stress-state that can be used to characterize fully their mechanical properties. Application of biaxial testing to biological tissues initially developed as an extension of the techniques developed for the investigation of rubber elasticity [43, 57]. However, whereas for rubber-like materials the continuum scale is that of large polymer molecules, it is at the fiber-level (∼1 μm) for soft biological tissues. This is underscored by the fact that the fibers that comprise biological tissues exhibit finite nonlinear stress-strain responses and undergo large strains and rotations, which together induce complex mechanical behaviors not easily accounted for in classic constitutive models. Accounting for these behaviors by careful experimental evaluation and formulation of a constitutive model continues to be a challenging area in biomechanics. The focus of this paper is to describe a history of the application of biaxial testing techniques to soft planar tissues, their relation to relevant modern biomechanical constitutive theories, and important future trends. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The torsion of a composite,nonlinear-elastic cylinder with an inclusion having initial large strains

This article considers a static problem of torsion of a cylinder composed of incompressible, nonlinear-elastic materials at large deformations. The cylinder contains a central, round, cylindrical inclusion that was initially twisted and stretched (or compressed) along the axis and fastened to a strainless, external, hollow cylinder. The problem statement and solution are based on the theory of superimposed large strains. An accurate analytical solution of this problem based on the universal solution for the incompressible material is obtained for arbitrary nonlinear-elastic isotropic incompressible materials. The detailed investigation of the obtained solution is performed for the case in which the cylinders are composed of Mooney-type materials. The Poynting effect is considered, and it is revealed that composite cylinder torsion can involve both its stretching along the axis and compression in this direction without axial force, depending on the initial deformation.     

Poynting and axial force–twist effects in nonlinear elastic mono- and bi-layered cylinders: Torsion,axial and combined loadings

The Poynting effect, in which a cylinder elongates or contracts axially under torsion, is an important nonlinear phenomenon in soft materials. In this paper, analytical solutions are obtained for homogeneous and bi-layered cylinders under torsion, axial and combined loadings, employing second-order elasticity and Lagrangian equilibrium equations. Explicit parameters for judging the sign of the Poynting effect are given. It is found that the effect in a soft composite may be significantly amplified over that in homogeneous materials and that it is strongly influenced by the interface position and by the material configuration in the composite. A coupled axial force–twist effect under combined loading, i.e., the twist of a torsionally loaded cylinder can be affected by the axial loading, is also found. Comparison of the predictions with the torque-tension-twist data for cardiac papillary muscles shows reasonable agreement. The solutions also provide the basis for a mechanistic method of determining third-order elastic constants.     

FInite torsion of slightly compressible rubberlike circular cylinders∗

A regular perturbation procedure and the Rayleigh-Ritz method are used to study the finite torsion of cylinders made of slightly compressible neo-Hookean materials. Two cases are considered: 1. the length of the cylinder is not permitted to change during torsion and 2. the net axial force on the cylinder vanishes. The perturbation procedure fails for certain constitutive relations whereas, in principle, the Rayleigh-Ritz method has general applicability. When it works, the success of the perturbation procedure depends on prior knowledge of the problem for an incompressible material (the zeroth order nonlinear problem). The solution of problem 2. is considerably more complicated than the solution of problem 1. since the complete approximation of order n for problem 2. requires extensive work on the approximation of order (n + 1).     

ONSET OF ASYMMETRY: FLOW PAST CIRCULAR AND ELLIPTIC CYLINDERS

A computational study of the development of two- dimensional unsteady viscous incompressible flow around a circular cylinder and elliptic cylinders is undertaken at a Reynolds number of 10,000. A higher- order upwind scheme is used to solve the Navier–Stokes equations by the finite difference method in order to study the onset of computed asymmetry around bluff bodies. For the computed cases the ellipses develop asymmetry much earlier than the circular cylinder. The receptivity of the computed flows in the presence of discrete roughness and surface vibration is studied. Finally, the role of discrete roughness in triggering asymmetry for flow past a circular cylinder is studied and compared with flow visualization experiments at Re=10,000     

Extension,torsion and expansion of an incompressible,hemitropic Cosserat circular cylinder

Constitutive equations for the stress and couple stres on an incompressible, hemitropic, constrained Cosserat material are derived, and the theory is applied to study the problem of finite extension, torsion and expansion of a circular cylinder. As in the theory of isotropic simple elastic materials, it is found that the deformation is controllable by application of only a normal force and a tosional moment at the cylinder ends. It is shown that in general the well known universal relation between the torsional stiffness and the axial force for incompressible, isotropic simple materials in the limit as the twist goes to zero does not exist for incompressible, hemitropic Cosserat materials. However, for a special and unusual class of hemitropic materials, the same universal formula is found to hold for a certain reduced torsional stiffness. The main problem is solved completely for incompressible, hemitropic, linearly elastic, Cosserat materials; and certain additional special features of the Kelvin-Poynting type, which here appear to the first order in the amount of twist of the cylinder, are derived and discussed in relation to experimentally observed composite material behavior.     

Spherical indentation of incompressible rubber-like materials

In recent years, indentation tests have been proven very useful in probing mechanical properties of small volumes of materials. However, a class of materials that very little has been done in this direction is rubber-like materials (elastomers). The present work investigates the spherical indentation of incompressible rubber-like materials. The analysis is performed in the context of second-order hyperelasticity and is accompanied by finite element computations and an extensive experimental program with spherical indentors of different radii. Uniaxial tensile tests were also performed and it was found that the initial elastic modulus correlates well with the indentation response. The experiments suggest stiffer indentation response than that predicted by linear elasticity, which is somehow counter-intuitive, if the uniaxial material response is to be considered. Regarding the uniqueness of the inverse problem, that is to establish material properties from spherical indentation tests, the answer is disappointing. We prove that the inverse problem does not give unique answer regarding the constitutive relation, except for the initial stiffness.     

Constitutive modeling and the trousers test for fracture of rubber-like materials

The classical constitutive modeling of incompressible hyperelastic materials such as vulcanized rubber involves strain-energy densities that depend on the first two invariants of the strain tensor. The most well-known of these is the Mooney-Rivlin model and its specialization to the neo-Hookean form. While each of these models accurately predicts the mechanical behavior of rubber at moderate stretches, they fail to reflect the severe strain-stiffening and effects of limiting chain extensibility observed in experiments at large stretch. In recent years, several constitutive models that capture the effects of limiting chain extensibility have been proposed. Here we confine attention to two such phenomenological models. The first, proposed by Gent in 1996, depends only on the first invariant and involves just two material parameters. Its mathematical simplicity has facilitated the analytic solution of a wide variety of basic boundary-value problems. A modification of this model that reflects dependence on the second invariant has been proposed recently by Horgan and Saccomandi. Here we discuss the stress response of the Gent and HS models for some homogeneous deformations and apply the results to the fracture of rubber-like materials. Attention is focused on a particular fracture test, namely the trousers test where two legs of a cut specimen are pulled horizontally apart. It is shown that the cut position plays a key role in the fracture analysis, and that the effect of the cut position depends crucially on the constitutive model employed. For stiff rubber-like or biological materials, it is shown that the influence of the cut position is diminished. In fact, for linearly elastic materials, the critical driving force for fracture is independent of the cut position. It is also shown that the limiting chain extensibility models predict finite fracture toughness as the cut position approaches the edge of the specimen whereas classical hyperelastic models predict unbounded toughness in this limit. The results are relevant to the structural integrity of rubber components such as vibration isolators, vehicle tires, earthquake bearings, seals and flexible joints.     

Stress Singularity in an Elastic Cylinder of Cylindrically Anisotropic Materials

The issue of stress singularity in an elastic cylinder of cylindrically anisotropic materials is examined in the context of generalized plane strain and generalized torsion. With a viewpoint that the singularity may be attributed to a conflicting definition of anisotropy at r=0, we study the problem through a compound cylinder in which the outer cylinder is cylindrically anisotropic and the core is transversely isotropic. By letting the radius of the core go to zero, the cylinder becomes one with the central axis showing no conflict in the radial and tangential directions. Closed-form solutions are derived for the cylinder under pressure, extension, torsion, rotation and a uniform temperature change. It is found that the stress is bounded everywhere, and singularity does not occur if the anisotropy at r=0 is defined appropriately. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Conewise linear elastic materials

Conewise linear elastic (CLE) materials are proposed as the proper generalization to two and three dimensions of one-dimensionalbimodular models. The basic elements of classical smooth elasticity are extended tononsmooth (or piecewise smooth) elasticity. Firstly, a necessary and sufficient condition for a stress-strain law to becontinous across the interface of the tension and compression subdomains is established. Secondly, a sufficient condition for the strain energy function to be strictlyconvex is derived. Thirdly, the representations of the energy function, stress-strain law and elasticity tensor are obtained fororthotropic, transverse isotropic andisotropic CLE materials. Finally, the previous results are specialized to apiecewise linear stress-strain law and it is found out that the pieces must be polyhedral convex cones, thus the CLE name.     

一种新的橡胶材料弹性本构模型

橡胶类材料本构关系对于科学研究和工程应用具有重要意义,但已有的橡胶模型的拟合能力和可靠性需要进一步提高.为解决此问题,本文提出了一种新的橡胶材料的各向同性、不可压缩柯西弹性模型.研究了橡胶材料本构关系的模型形式,基于平面应力变形状态,提出了一种以较大的两个伸长率为自变量、适用于一般变形状态的橡胶材料弹性本构模型形式;研究了橡胶材料在侧面受约束条件下的变形规律,分析了橡胶材料本构关系需要满足的约束条件;在此基础上,结合一个可以通过实验确定的描述平面拉伸变形状态下的橡胶材料力学特性函数,提出一种将该函数拓展为平面应力状态一般模型的方法,并给出了一个具体的函数形式,形成了一个新的不可压缩、各向同性的橡胶材料弹性本构模型.使用5组包含3种类型实验的数据和一组较全面的双轴测试数据对该模型进行了参数拟合,结果表明:该模型具有很好的拟合精度和更高的可靠性,仅用一种类型实验数据,如单轴拉伸或者平面拉伸等,也能获得较好的拟合结果.