The generalised Mooney space for modelling the response of rubber-like materials (Q2085528)

The suitability of a hyperelastic strain energy function condidate is determined by comparing its predicted response to the data gleaned from tests and adjusting the material parameters to get a good fit. The authors propose to generalise an approach of Rivlin and Saunders and, instead of reporting the data as stress against stretch, manipulated these measures to create the `Mooney plot', where the Mooney-Rivlin model is expected to produce a linear fit. Obviously, is this approach the nonlinearity is hidden in the choice of the Mooney plot variables. They further show that extending this idea to other models and modes of deformation (tension, shear, torsion, etc.) is advantageous, not only for the fitting procedure, but also to delineate trends in the deformation which are not obvious from the raw data and to obtain a bounded condition number κ over the whole range of deformation.