Incompressibility and materials with complementary strain-energy density (Q1330759)

The constitutive equations for nonlinear elastic incompressible materials involve an indeterminate pressure field as an additional postulate on material behavior. In the paper this indeterminacy is examined and it is shown that the indeterminacy of the pressure at given strain is necessary and sufficient for incompressibility. This result is also generalized to constraints other than incompressibility. Finaly, a simple linear dependence of the complementary strain-energy density on pressure which is necessary and sufficient for incompressibility is deduced.